Hi guys,

Picked up our new blue vapor nav RX on Monday. Absolutely love it, especially the Lexus nav system, except for this one thing I noticed about the climate control.

It was 25 degrees when I left the house this morning. I set the climate control to 72 degrees on auto, manually turning off the AC. Few things I observed. After driving for about 30 minutes, outside temperature was around 32, and my feet were frozen! So I press the recirculate button just to bring up the climate control info on the nav screen, and saw that the air flow was at the face level with one notch for the fan speed. In all cars I've ever owned with an auto climate control, the air flow stays at the feet level until the entire cabin of the car is sufficient warmed; very rarely I see the auto climate system change to bi level unless it is at least 60 degrees outside. So I dialed it up to 74 degrees, it then changed to bi level (face and feet) and fan speed went to two notches, but the air was just slight warm. It wasn't until I dialed it to 76 before it turned to feet level, but air flow was still insufficient to warm the cabin quickly. So I ended up cranking it up to max heat.

Could there be something wrong with my climate control? I'm going to see my dealer to have them turn off the auto AC mode. This is a cbest option to turn on and off the AC. WWest seems to be very knowledgeable about the climate control. Do you have any info on this? BTW, the windows did not fog up.

Thanks in advance for any info.

 

Yours does sound extreme so certainly have the dealer check it.

25 degrees outside. The Lexus climate control temperature "comfort" "feedback" is based only on cabin air temperature, whereas the human body is also greatly affected by radiant cooling/heating from our "surrounding" environment.

Look at all of the glass surounding your body as you set in the drivers seat of your RX, at 25 degrees F EVERYTHING outside is absorbing the radiant heat from your body and giving absolutely nothing in return. Early in your drive it is even possible that while the cabin air temperature was at a reasonable comfort level the interior materials of the RX was cold enough to contribute greatly to your discomfort.

Two suggestions:

1. Be really diligent about manually over-riding the system to footwell only, Lexus claims that the airflow from the dash and windsheild defrost outlets will be significantly lower in temperatrue than that from the footwell.

2. Remove the A/C compressor clutch relay in the fuse box near the battery. If the resulting "flashing" A/C indicator bothers you cover it with a small piece of black electrical tape like I do.

On cold mornings my own practice is to turn on the seat heaters, put the system in "auto", turn the A/C off (if the relay is installed), and then "flick" the temperature setpoint **** to max heat. Once the volume of heated airflow (the blower doesn't start until the engine water jacket temperature reaches 130F) rises high enough to be discomforting I lower the setpoint to 77F, and then if our morning drive is extended for some reason I eventually set it to 71.

And of couse if/when the stupid thing switches away from footwell only I immediately return it to footwell.

If your windshield should start to fog over at any time the safest thing to do is give that **** a hard flick to max heat and then activate the defrost function.