Air Con

So you havent fired it up weekly to exercise it from then til now?

Tim..

God no! Too bloody cold :-)

Rockingrabbit gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Apart from giving aircon regular exercise helping to keep the seals sealing, AirCon is _fantastic_ for clearing misted windows.

My climate control is never switched off - ever.

Kev

In message , Rockingrabbit writes

If its the original condenser then it will have rotted. They are fairly prone to that. Having said that, IME they only last about 6-7 years on a Mk2 Mondeo so it might not be the original one but if it is it will definitely be shot now.

I would imagine that your system has been re-gassed at least once in its life so there should be florescent dye in the system. You can actually see the dye without a florescent light so get under the front of the car and try have a look at the bottom of the condenser.

You do realise that it can heat as well as cool?

Isn't "Climate Control" just a thermostat? If so, then it may never call for the air con to run during the winter as the weather and the temp you are asking for may not require it to cool the air.

At home my central heating doesn't come on in the summer - because my thermostat never calls for it.

"John" gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

Hit the windscreen demist button, and the aircon will be kicked in.

But, the rest of the time, you're right - it'll not do much.

I leave my CC on all the time too. It 'exercises' it once per start, as a minimum and always when you call for demist.

Not on any car I have ever come across.

Harry Bloomfield gurgled happily, sounding much like they were saying:

I've never come across a car with aircon where the two couldn't be combined.

The evap is in the airflow before the heater matrix. Combine the two, and get dry warm air.

Range Rover Classic had seperate vents

Adrian brought next idea :

a/c plus heat from the heater matrix - yes, but I understood ConorConor to be suggesting heat from the a/c system.

Mine is always set to Auto but I haven't yet found out why CC is supposed to be a benefit over a traditional system because I use the temperature dial just as much as I used to use the heater control. I don't know how well it regulates but even if it could hold a perfectly steady temperature it can never be subjectively right the whole time.

Full climate control means that it controls the AC, heating, and where the hot / cold air is directed to. I tend to set it to auto, 21-22 deg and leave it at that. Only times I really touch the controls are when I need to demist in winter or need to cool the car when it has been sitting in the sun for hours on a really hot day. Even then it tends to be set back to 21 deg shortly afterwards.

My old Volvo 850 T5 used to noticeably adjust the heating / cooling if I opened a window for a few minutes. I could hear the fan speed increase and feel the temp from the vents change. Close the window and 10-20 seconds later it would all go back to normal.

The BMW I just sold had the most pathetically inept climate control of anything I've ever owned. It worked, but compared the the Volvo one it was hopeless.

DavidR formulated on Tuesday :

Over all, I would suggest mine is fairly satisfactory. It is the type with the solar heating sensor on the dash. I can just generally set it and forget it. I don't miss the suddenly noticing that I am freezing, nor that of feeling over heated with a conventional system - but what I do miss is the ability to be able to wack the heat up to full for a few minutes, when I get back in the car frozen.

"Harry Bloomfield" wrote

So has mine. But so what? If it's trying to maintain air temperature I would have assumed the idea is to measure air temperature.

...turn the aircon off

...turn the aircon on

What I don't understand is that when set to minimum (

Mine (04 Honda Accord 2.0SE) kicks in for a little while all the time, even when the air outside is much cooler than the desired temp on a cloudy day.

The problem I have with Aircon as a demister is that you need to switch it off towards the end of the journey to dry out. As soon as I do that, the car mists up, so... That was true with the Focus (A/C) and with the Almera and Honda (both Climate Control) -- all with the recirculation off. :-)

YMMV.

DavidR presented the following explanation :

It doesn't maintain the set temperature, the idea is it measures how strong the sun is, the solar heating as a result and adjusts the temperature down to compensate.

The point I was making was that it sets the temperature for the air in the car, taking no account of how cold >you< might be having just got in. Bet the next version of CC include an IR system to measure your outer body temperature and compensate for it :-)