Hello folks,

Brief context

I live in San Francisco California, the usual temperature in the morning is around 50-65 degrees around spring time.

So i was driving early morning yesterday 56 degrees outside temp, my typical commute of about 45 min drive when halfway on my journey I noticed my car is blowing HOT air at 66 degrees which I found unusual because I wear a heavy jacket 66 degrees usually is my comfortable setting while driving. but yesterday it was just blowing hot air at my go-to temp. of 66 degrees. anyways to get to the bottom of it I pulled over on the side of the road hoping that shutting down the engine (on and off) will reset my issue. unfortunately, this did not do anything so I meddled with the AC controls using different combination and permutations LOL. and here is what i foound out my findings were:

MAX LOW up to 65 degrees = blows cold air
66 to 70 degrees = blows hot air which I found unusual the air that comes out 66 degrees usually is a nice breeze, NOT HOT air per se as you'd feel at 70-77 degrees. if anybody had experienced this before could you please let me know how you solve this mystery I'm trying not to go to the dealer without properly identifying the issue because chances are they would dismiss me and tell me nothing is wrong which I know for a fact there is something wrong. I appreciate any help you can give me and thank you in advance.


P.S. During my last service Lexus tech told me my battery failed the Lexus test its still working fine but just not up to their standards I guess, not sure if this could be related to my issue but thought I'd add it in here. thank you in advance for any inputs.

 

Did you have it set to auto mode climate control? If you did, the car senses that it is cold outside and is warming the cabin up to the desired temperature. Once it's at 66 degrees inside the car cabin it will switch between cold and hot air as necessary to maintain that temperature.
​​​​​​
To me this seems like absolutely normal automatic climate control behavior.

Perhaps it was especially cold that morning?

 

I remember a YouTuber (Jason Nguyen) had this issue and he had some instructions on what he did, something with disconnecting the negative terminal (he also got his battery changed I believe) and the A/C started functioning normally. I also think there's a re-call on the A/C as well

 

I played with the AC control numerious times tried different combination auto/non auto its just the temp gauge seems off, only way I can cool the air is by setting it up to max low, I even raised my temp in incrementals manually one degree at a time until i reach 66 degrees then it blows hot air equivallent to 72-75 degrees ill check with a thermometer and check what the actual temp is lol

 

do you happen to have the link to it by chance? I tried googling it but it just shows random videos I watched a couple of his vids hoping id fall into the right one but couldnt really find the one your referring to.. 😅

 

starts at 1:30.. if this doesn't work, try to go for the recall at the dealership

 

thank you ill go ahead and try it ill let you know how it goes but first i gotta go get myself a new battery.

 

Idk why I thought you did get a new battery. I don't think you should go out and buy a new battery for this, you don't have to. You can do the reset without it, if that doesn't work.. go in for the recall on the car. A lot of people got notices for it this year.

 

I had the same issue a few times....I would tri to recharge the freon to see if that helps before shelling out money for a new battery. If that doesn't work, then bring it to the dealer. What the dealer did was first update the software to mine and haven't had the issue come back. I'm sure if it does come back then they would go with warranting you new servos.

 

I had a similar issue in Oct 2020 with my IS350, but hot air was only blowing in the passenger side vents when the AC was on. I had to take it to the dealer and they repaired it under warranty. I know they replaced some type of power and stated it was common in IS's but will have to look up exactly what the part was. The repair only took a couple hours and everything has been good ever since.