![[TW]Fox](/data/man-of-honor/2009.png){kind=avatar}
Which is exactly why a good system has a manual override for main vent temp. The car maintains a comfortable temperature of say 21c but you can alter the vent temp separately in order to account for exactly what you say.
What have you done to your car today?
- Thread starter mattyprice4004
- Start date
Which is exactly why a good system has a manual override for main vent temp. The car maintains a comfortable temperature of say 21c but you can alter the vent temp separately in order to account for exactly what you say.
I've only ever seen it on BMWs. The brilliant thing is it only affects the front facing top vents. The windscreen vents blowing warm climate controlled air over the windscreen remains unchanged. It's quite smartypants really.
[TW]Fox;28128250 said:
Well, not really. What advantage is there to be gained by leaving the ambient temperature in exactly the same place, then adjusting the temperature of just the main vents? If you get in the car wearing heavy winter wear and the ambient temp is on 25C, you'll just end up sitting in an uncomfortably warm car with the main vents blowing at you in a lower temperature. Why not just...adjust the climate control to a more comfortable ambient temperature for your current attire/situation/preference?
If the car is maintaining a comfortable temperature of 21C, but you find it uncomfortable, then surely it's not a comfortable temperature...why override it,when you can just change it?
On topic of climate control systems, does anyone let it run while the engine is cold - e.g. after starting the car for the first time in the morning?
A few people I've observed seem to either leave it off until the coolant has warmed up, or have it on as soon as the car has started.
A few people I've observed seem to either leave it off until the coolant has warmed up, or have it on as soon as the car has started.
http://www.iceboxauto.com/
They're UK based so keep some of it in stock or (in my case) have it shipped from China to them where they test them before shipping them out to you
Doesn't matter when you turn it on. If it's a good system left on auto at a set temp like 21 degrees then it will handle everything that's required and push air around the vents dynamically to the vents that benefit the most for the ambient conditions. be sure to leave AC on too. Most cars will retain the AC on setting when the car is off and the car has climate control. There's no reason to ever turn AC off in any season.
Because you might want a quick blast of warm or cold air to your face for a little while. You could adjust the temperature but the change in temperature would be a lot more subtle without ramping it right up to 32C or something.
I can see no reason whatsoever to turn it on/off manually. Most systems won't start trying to blow warm air until it is warm anyway.
I see. But what about when you've had your quick fix of warm/cold air? Do you then reset the vents to neutral? Because if you do that, but maintain a stubborn approach to not adjusting your climate control, then eventually the car will be at an ambient temperature that's still not that comfortable, depending on clothing.
If you don't reset the vents, then you'll end up with the car maintaining 21c, but with the vents constantly blowing on your face (I'm guessing it's the dash vents?) at a different temperature. My point is, it's perfectly logical and understandable to adjust the CC temperature for different situations, I don't see how separately adjustable vent temperatures make such adjustment redundant.
It's climate control, there is no if or but!
Once you've used it you realise just how it works. Leave it on 21 degrees, adjust main vent dial to hot/cold for quick blast of whatever, climate control is exactly that, it will adjust the others and push warm/cold air to maintain the set temp.
Once you've used it you realise just how it works. Leave it on 21 degrees, adjust main vent dial to hot/cold for quick blast of whatever, climate control is exactly that, it will adjust the others and push warm/cold air to maintain the set temp.
This is what I mean about people not really ‘getting’ it. Why would you have it set to 25c? You wouldn’t. It isn’t going to make it any more toasty warm in winter nor is it going to heat up any quicker when its cold. It’s a main thermostat setting – you don’t constantly adjust your home central heating thermostat do you? You don’t set your home thermostat to 25c do you? You might manually turn a radiator up from time to time but that’s not the same thing as adjusting the main system attempt randomly every time your mood changes.
21c (+/- 1c) is generally recognised as the optimal ambient temperature for people. So, the system stays set to this and maintains that, if you get in a freezing cold car it’ll heat the car up and be toasty and warm on the way to doing that and then gradually reduce the vent temp as it approaches it. So you get the toasty warm effect in winter. If it’s hot outside and a sauna inside it’ll cool the car with chilled air in exactly the same way. It even adjusts for the effect of solar gain. It just works.
Obviously sometimes we want to deviate from this – you’ve been for a run and you are hot, you want cold air. You don’t need to change it to 16c to get this, you can just over-ride the main vent with only cold air. Bingo – blast of cold air. Ditto if you want it a bit hotter than normal or something.
Continually changing the temp dial just seems to defeat the point of AUTOMATIC climate control, plus it isn’t even that efficient. Unless you dramatically change it, adjusting from 21c to 19c isn’t going to suddenly blast you with ice cold air, whereas the vent control allows you to do that if you wish.
Obviously this might differ in a more basic setup but in a decent system you set it up once – to your preferences – and forget about it. It takes care of everything else automatically, if your window fogs up the fogging sensor detects this and diverts air over the screen without you needing to intervene. If the sun is making it feel hotter inside than usual it detects this and blows colder air, etc etc.
This is how I work mine – I set everything to auto, 21c and then never need to touch the climate panel ever again. It’s actually frustrating to have to constantly fiddle with the main temp setting in cars with a less useful system installed.
I have no issue with adjusting your climate control's temperature if you're hot or cold. I don't tend to do it but I have been known to once or twice. I also have never driven a car with a separately adjustable dash vent but I should imagine that it'd designed for someone who wants a quick 2 minute blast of cold air if they've just broken a sweat doing something, for example, and they don't want to faff about cranking their climate control down to 16c or whatever and waiting for it to cool down, or separately messing around with the fan speed and direction. It's clearly much quicker than doing that.
Edit: What he said ^
20°C master race yo
I can only guess you have not used a fully featured system with stratified vent control for any length of time as none of the criticisms you raise are an issue. It just... Works. Its wonderful.
Basically I barely need to think about it, my car just always seems to be at the perfect temp with minor adjustment available at any point. 21ish is such a temp that its pretty much always right in any situation and the system compensates for external variances that might change that.
Its a common one, people always seem to think separate vent temp control is pointless until they use it.
Ok so that's twice a year you need to touch it.
Btw, I know it sounds odd but the vent temp is warmer in winter than it is in summer despite the same setting. The external factors the system is taking into consideration means for the same temp setting the car will be blowing hotter air into the car in the winter than it will in summer.
I drove to Cologne in December. It was -2 outside and toasty warm inside. I drove to Manchester last year. It was 26 outside and chilled inside. The setting on the climate control? The same 21c....
The systems are far cleverer and more fully featured than people expect, if you constantly fiddle with it you never get to experience its true capabilities.
[TW]Fox;28129523 said:
Well no because temperature isn't binary! You get unseasonably warm days, cold spells in the middle of summer, temperature all over the place in spring. I regularly have early starts to travel for work and when it's dark, cold and raining outside it's nice to have the car a bit warmer. When it's warmed up later in the day and I've been working for 8 hours, I might be more comfortable in a cooler car.
I know it changes the temperature at the vent depending on all sorts of factors, I know exactly how the systems work - it just comes down very simply to wanting different temperatures at different times. It's the same at home and in the office - I'll sit in from of the fire at home when it's miserable and cold outside - god knows what temperature it is but I certainly wouldn't want that on a summers evening!
Anyway my point that kicked off this whole weird argument was that I dont find I want/need to change it much more with the manual AC than when I had climate - this wasn't because I didn't understand climate control systems.
Your car's cabin will warm up in the depths of winter just as fast if it's set to 20 or 21C than if it's set to 25 though. Do you really do an entire journey with the climate set to 25C?