I have a new 2003 Town and Country minivan, which we purchased in September.It has (supposedly) 3 zone climate control, where you set each of three digital temperature controls on the dash, and it supposedly senses the 3 zones and automatically adjusts each zones ac/heat accordingly.
I have a few questions about the way this system works (or doesn't work). And, BTW, it has been checked out by the mechanics in the Dealer's service dep't, and they claim it is "operating as designed".
- The little "snowflake" symbol, indicating that the air conditioner compressor is running, runs ALL the time, regardless of the temperature in or out of the vehicle. This morning, it was 26 degree, and when left in "auto" mode, the snowflake was on. I KNOW that this is useful in cold weather as a defroster-enhancer, to dehumidify, but in my other vehicles with "climate control", the compressor only runs if the vehicle is either in A/C mode or defroster mode, not on heat-only or other mix modes. It seems that the only way to have the compressor NOT run is to manually turn it off....which takes the entire system out of automatic mode and puts in all into manual. Kind of a lousy trade-off if other aspects of the automatic system are desirable, such as auto-fan-speed.
- When we still had warm weather here in the northeast, the AC would of course run. The vehicle has a number of ceiling AC outlets for the middle and rear seat areas. But, I discovered that even when it was quite warm outside, and at least 120 degrees in the van when we first start it (after having it parked in the hot sun), only the front dash AC outlets are spewing cold air. The rear outlets seemed to be off. So, we checked the settings, and the rear system was set for "auto", meaning the system was supposed to be determining how much air, etc. When we turned the rear system to "rear control", we had no trouble manually turning on the rear AC, but again, that defeats the purpose of having an automatic system. But, it seems that there is no condition in auto-mode that makes the rear AC come on, on its own.
What gives? Has Chrysler seriously cut corners on the climate control system on a $40,000 vehicle, requiring it to be put in manual control to get it to do what its auto-system should have been designed to have it do? Or is the dealer service department wrong, and the system is not operating as designed? Any helpful advice would be appreciated.
Thanks,Matthew