Hi, I am new here and I just inherited a 1994 ES300 with maybe a problem with the air inlet control. If the car been parked in the sun with the interior being very warm and the auto mode turned off, the A/C climate control always switch the inlet from fresh to recirculation when I start or restart my car. I can understand it doing this when in auto mode but on manual also? I believe it also switch the inlet to fresh from recirculation mode when the interior is cold when I start or restart my car. I have brought it to a auto shop that works with Toyota cars but he did not know the reason. I also brought a used a/c climate control unit from eBay but that didn't help. I ran the climate control diagnostic and showed no problem. The outside temp shows the correct temperature. I was wondering if I need to take it to the dealer to adjust the settings? I hope this is not normal on manual mode because it's quite irritating to keep changing back to the previous setting.

Help! Any ideas.

 

Irritating aspect of these cars I don't know a way to fix it, there is nothing wrong with your car this behaviour is normal. This only happens if the temp control is set to COLD. Many Toyota and Lexus models do the same thing.

 

Lexus TSIB SS001-99 indicates that the "Air Inlet Mode" on the 98-up LS and GS and the 99-up RX can be set to either "auto" or "manual" mode using a Lexus handheld scan tool with an appropriate program card. The TSIB does not mention the ES. I'm thinking that dealer customizable features were first available on the ES with the 2002 body style change but I could be wrong about that.

The "manual" air inlet mode prevents the automatic from switching to "recirculate". Oddly, this particular customization was available only on vehicles with sunroofs.

 

Thanks for the great info. I guess I will have to put up with this issue but it finally put my mind to rest.

 

Oh, by the way Lexus2000 I always set my temp to 65 degrees not COLD because I don't want to use the air conditioner but it still changes the inlet mode when I start or restart the car. And Kansas my ES has a sunroof but is a 94. Is this still normal for the car?