How’s your AC?
 

I noticed the same with AC. Without turning it on it will just pump hot air to the cabin. Never experienced this any of the cars I owned. The cooling seats are not really that cool . Expected ventilated seats similar to ones in Cadillac :).
For now the IRX tint I got installed is helping me with the summer.
Also Key fob won't work if I'm 15 feet away from the car.
Using the app for now.

So I’m not delusional about the fan. I haven’t tried the cooled seats. Now I’m scared to. Is anyone else having issue with these things? Wondering if I should bring it up in my first service.

Yes the fan. When you just use the fan without turning on the AC all you get is hot air around 75F temperature. Which is very unusual.
Noticed the same in my pal's IS500 too.
I think its native to this car.
The cooling seats are average at the best at lvl 3 speed.

Regarding the fan if it bothers enough people I’m down for opening a new thread. Thanks for sharing that another IS500 has the issue too. I found a thread from Hyundai owners about the same problem. I don’t know what the solution was. I think it may be the engine heat. One way to confirm this is by running the fan when the car is first turned on. If the air gets hotter as the engine warms up then it’s related to the engine.

https://www.hyundai-forums.com/threa...is-off.493233/

Mods - thanks for the new thread. Just to be clear about the title, the problem is not the AC, but the fan when the AC is off (for those of us who like to save energy when it’s not too hot, but hot enough to want some air circulation).

As a first year model car. I think we will see lot of minute issues with this car.
no wonder dealers are also clueless with these new issues.
hope we will find answers from lexus.
what really saddens me is that with reputation that lexus has with reliability “peace of mind” and these issues with a 70k car is unacceptable.

The IS works the same way as all 5 Lexus vehicles I've owned. If the AC is set to 85 and you turn it off, you will still get hot air coming in. If you have it set to 65 and turn it off, you will get cool (not cold) air coming in. Needless to say, mine functions perfectly.

The cooled seats do kinda suck. They're worse than the ES, RX, and LS. I think the cooled seats are a cost cutting problem since this is a $40k car with a $25k motor.

The fan when set at lowest temperature with AC switch off still blows warm air. My other car “subaru” blows cool air as expected.
checked it on my friends is500 too. It blows warm air even when external temperatures are cool.
I noticed it first in feb during winter time in dallas. Thought it was common with V8 in general till I drove my pals mustang gt.

Only previous IS owners or other IS500 owners can shed some light on this cars fan behavior.

I can live with those sub performing ventilated seats but expected a better outcome from brands like lexus especially on this new 2022 car :D.


Coming to the cost, a fully equipped IS350 is around 55k and the performance is500 is around 63k
So there isn’t much diff to justify 25k just for engine.

I feel like lexus didn’t do much testing on this new model before shipping them out to customers.

Is it the same if you have the air re circulation on and off?

Maybe I missed something. What would you expect If you have the AC off and the fan on? It will either feed hot air from the outside into the cabin or re-circulate the hot air inside the cabin already. It’s not that hard to figure out.
That being said, the AC in my car is functioning perfectly.

let me explain my scenario:

consider the AC button is tuned off. The temperature dial or touch whatever is set to low. The re-circulation option is tuned off to let the outside air fill the cabin.

Now after starting the car and driving the car for lets say 10 mins. The air pumped into the car cabin is way hotter than the outside air temperature. So this forces me to turn on the AC all the time.

this was the case during winter time in dallas which is when temp is 35f outside

I didn’t try with recirculate option without AC tuned off yet but will update it once I test it.
haven’t really drove her much due to bumper issue which has a whole new forum.

Definitely don’t think these issues are specific to the IS500. All the Toyota/Lexus products I’ve owned have ACs that operate similarly - I think it might be an intentional ‘feature’ to keep fresh air flowing into the cabin. As others mentioned just set the AC at a low temp before turning off and the air still flowing thru the vents will basically be same temp as the outside air (perhaps heated a bit if it’s cold outside).

Never had any luck on Toyota/Lexus cooled seats. Sadly these are pretty much the same. Hopefully the new generation Toyota products fix this.

The air intake for the heater/ ventilation system is on the top of the cowl. There is a relatively large engine making heat in a small compartment just ahead of the firewall below the cowl.

All Toyota/lexus vehicles are like this unless the ambient air is very cold, if the intake air was coming from the front of the car it would be different but then in colder months people would complain about the heater blowing cooler air than expected.

Lol I had a feeling almost nobody would understand this issue.

This is a gas miser move. Not using AC, rather only the fan, to cool yourself off. It’s like couponing. You’ve either done it your whole life to save money, or you’re too good for it and don’t bother.

If you do it, you’ll know what we’re talking about. If you don’t, this thread makes no sense to you.

My wife’s CT200h blows cool air with the AC off / fan on and my Priuses before all did it too. Those are the only cars I’ve ever had. Therefore I don’t know if “warm air from the vents” is a V8 thing or a non-hybrid thing, or a malfunction altogether. Need the input of others. Thanks.

One way to pull in more cool air is to open the moonroof, it comes in right through the vents. Unless you're Canadian, then you open the glove box, right @wthrman2 🤣 You can also roll the window down a bit. None of the cars I've owned ever blew cold air with the AC off. My GM vehicles struggled to blow cold air even with thr AC on!

I dont know how Subaru does it, but on a cold morning for me the car feels really nice inside without the AC running. Maybe in your Subaru the AC compressor is still running in some "low" setting when you turn it off so you still get the cold air? Either way, this isn't rocket science... turn the AC on for cold air or crack a window :dunno: