I'm just wondering if anyone here knows why my TCH seems to love to set itself to recirculating air. I hate that and would be fine if it wasn't even an option, but it seems like I'm always pushing that button to turn it off when I never turned it on. Thanks for any help!

 

My lexus vehicals all do this also and is real discusting!! Must be something special with the boys from Japan lol!

 

There's been discussion of this before, and I believe there's a way you can disable this function. I'll have to do a search and see if I can find it.

 

One theory could be when your backing up in the driveway, you won't be bringing in your own exhaust fumes. Before I start to go forward, I press the recirculate off.

 

Just a few guesses, but isn't recirculated air easier to heat or cool since it's either already hot or cold? Makes it more efficient, no? I know that the defroster switches to outside air so it dosn't fog the window.

 

Your right about the recirculate on with the air conditioner. One really cold night, I tried the recirculate on. I don't know why but the heater put out much hotter air when I turned the recirculate off.

 

when you bring in outside air you also bring in a lot of humidity and air cond.would have to work harder to do its job.

 

There is a setting that can be changed, but only by the dealer, to make the recirc function a manual choice. I had this done to my TCH about one week after buying it, and have never regretted it.

 

Here's the "skinny"...

In recirculate mode the A/C can be, often is, a lot more efficient at cooling the passenger cabin down quickly. In fresh air mode cabin air that has already been through the cooling process is forced out of the exhauster port as more HOT air comes in.

The fly in the ointment...

When you first start the car on a hot day the atmosphere within the passenger cabin is often HOTTER than the outside atmsophere. In that case it would clearly be advanatgeous to fist run the system in fresh for a few minutes in order to purge the interior HOT atmosphere and then switch to fresh mode.

When my car has been setting out in a HOT sunshiny day the procedure I use is to open the sunroof slightly, turn the blower to max and the temperature setpoint to max cooling. Once the cabin is purged of the HOT atmosphere I switch the system to recirculate and reduce the blower speed to a "non-audiable" comfort level.

Just drove to McCall Id and back, ~1200 miles, with the A/C in max cool, recirculate, and using the blower speed to control our comfort level, 24.7MPH

 

Correct - I also had this done a few days after getting my 2007 in June! Just ask the dealer when you take it in.

John