I have a brand new 350 ES. First car I’ve owned and been in with ventilated seats. When I turn mine on, I hear the whoosh of the fan and hear it become louder as I go to three blocs or dots. The seat feels cool. But I expected a greater velocity and cooler feeling. Aside from the three dots or blocs, is there anyway to increase the effect of the ventilation. Also, is it cold irrespective of the cars A/C setting. Does it work even if A/C is off. Similarly, would it be colder if A/C is at a colder temperature setting?

 

So this has been discussed a lot on this car forum (and other forums too) where ventilated seats aren't that effective. Lexus seems to be a worst offender. Try blowing AC to the floor so that the chair can pick up the cold air.

 

I could be wrong but Im pretty sure it uses a thermoelectric (Peltier effect) element; not related to the car’s environmental HVAC system.
There is no simple or easy way to make it work more effectively.

 

ventilated seats are A bit disappointing.

 

I wonder if there's a difference between "ventilated" seats and "cooled" seats. I don't know what my LC has, but the seats definitely put out COLD air when it turns on automatically (kind of a weird thing, lol).

my (now gone) genesis g90 and new hyundai santa fe put out freezing 🥶 air from the seats lol.

 

From what I remember only LS actually uses HVAC to cool seats, all other models use fans. Now that might have changed with LC and LX refresh I don't know.

 

This depends on the car. Most cars dont work that way and they are just fans.

LS460 just fans. My S Class is just fans.

 

Aha! Maybe this is the key to my question. If ventilated seats are only air circulated, then that is why they’re not as cool as I expected. I assumed I would get cooled seats. They feel merely ventilated by fan and not hyacinth cooled air. That could be it.

 

my research from “Mr. Google” answers our question:

“These are designed to just blow some air through the cushions. If it's 100 degrees in the car, it will blow at 100 degrees. There are a lot of cars out there with cooled seats. The ES is not one of them.”Aug

 

They aren't called "ventilated" seats for nothing.

 

Okay but if HVAC cools cabin air to 65 degrees, then the air ventilating the seats will have been cooled to 65 degrees also. That’s essentially as good as the 65 degree air coming directly from HVAC into seats.

 

It's just a fan under the seat. The only way to maybe make it better is to adjust your A/C so that more air flow is going to the floor vents, so that more cooled air is blown up by the seat vents. My 2007 IS was disappointing with this feature. My wife's '19 Hyundai is better.

 

It's the same as circulating the air in the cabin. That's it.

What I find interesting with this tech is that our Mazda sucks air, while my ES blows air through the seats. The Mazda system feels better to me than my Lexus.

 

That makes perfect sense. What makes the most difference with air conditioning is the evacuation of hot air more than the introduction of cool air, more carmakers should design their cooled seats that way

 

I agree, and our Audi works this way, and it's great. Although I do worry about what would happen to the seat if my son used it to cool himself off after a Lacrosse tournament.

Some GM products use a Peltier to actually deliver chilled air. I know it's been in Tahoes and Suburbans we've rented the past few years, and I believe also in a DTS we rented shortly after that model was discontinued. This is really nice in the Las Vegas heat where we rented them. But unfortunately I can only have it on high for a few minutes, then have to turn it down to low, else the rear seat passenger's knees start to burn, because the vents for the other side of the Peltier are in the middle of the seat back.