Climate Control

Sep 28, 2006 4 Replies

I have an '01 TL. Under good weather conditions, I usually set the ventilation system to auto, but I turn off the AC. But with the AC turned off like that, it is near impossible to clear the fog from the windows when it's rainy and damp. I discovered today that the best thing to do in those conditions is simply to set the system to full auto. This way, the AC takes care of the moisture. There is no need to run the full-blown defrost option.



But the AC seems to run a bit harder at first, and then tapers off as the humidity clears away. Am I imagining things, or does the automatic climate control have a humidity sensor built into it?


Dunno if you are imagining things, but it definitely takes energy to condense the moisture from the air. IIRC the heat transfer to condense a given amount of water is about 5.2 times the heat transfer that would be required to cool the water from boiling to freezing. The A/C has to work harder just to cool the air while removing humidity.

Mike

I purchased a 1999 3.2 TL a few months ago and in regards to climate control, in the FULL AUTO setting, does it mean that the system turn the AC on & off as needed? The manual is not specific on it.

Thanks, BG

Yup. That's what it means.

Living the high life...

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