Air Recirculate Button

[Berengaria]

On a 2014-17 Yaris with climate control electronic heating and ventilation, if the system was last used with the temperature set to 'low' (i.e. air at outside temp) and recirculate mode OFF, does the recirculate mode always come on (i.e. button lit) when the fan is switched on again / engine restarted?

[alan333]

If auto is selected then recirc mode will enable/disable as the system deems fit.  If you have manually selected recirc (or fresh) then it'll stay on your setting until auto mode is pressed again.  Air distribution is the same ie if you select screen and feet it'll stay there until auto is pressed again.

If the system is set to auto - it'll select recirc mode when the exterior temp is drastically hotter than the set heater temp, thus the air con is cooling 'already coolish' air from inside the car rather than cooling more hot air from outside.

(this was the case on our 2009-2012 Avensis' and Auris with climate control, I'd assume your system to be similar)

[Heidfirst]

9 hours ago, Berengaria said:

On a 2014-17 Yaris with climate control electronic heating and ventilation, if the system was last used with the temperature set to 'low' (i.e. air at outside temp) 

On my Avensis "low" is under 16C, outside air at this time may well be warmer than that ...

& as Alan333 says if you want an internal temperature that is lower than the outside temp. the system in Auto usually will decide it is more efficient to recirculate & cool the existing internal air rather than drawing in hotter external air & cooling that.

[Berengaria]

Thanks, but that's not quite what I meant.

Forget the auto mode. On my Avensis, I always have my ventilation system set to low, manual setting, aircon off, and the recirculate button off - this means that there's fresh air coming into the cabin from outside with the fan on and is how I like it (unless needing heat).

However, it has a silly, annoying trait that after either restarting the car and switching on the fan again, it always goes back to having the recirculate button out and on. This is a hard wired setting and is counter intuitive. This means I have to switch it off every time I use the car.

My question is therefore does the Yaris behave in the same way?

 

[Berisford]

On 04/09/2017 at 11:31 PM, Berengaria said:

My question is therefore does the Yaris behave in the same way?

I think the answer is Yes. I'm forever having to cancel the 'recirculate' mode on our Yaris.

[Heidfirst]

On 04/09/2017 at 11:31 PM, Berengaria said:

However, it has a silly, annoying trait that after either restarting the car and switching on the fan again, it always goes back to having the recirculate button out and on. This is a hard wired setting and is counter intuitive. This means I have to switch it off every time I use the car.

Unless they changed it between the 2012 & 2014 (which I doubt) it's not a hard setting - the system takes internal temperature, requested temperature & outside temperature into account & presumably uses an algorithm of some kind to decide what to do. Switching in Auto also gives it the ability to vary air direction, fan speed & AC.

I haven't gone through every setting scenario but it is possible to have the system start without Recirc on. It's  possibly the fact that you are demanding <16C air when the outside ambient is higher that is causing the system to select Recirc.

[YarisHybrid2016]

If I have RECIRC ON (recirc air) then it is GENERALLY on when I start up, however I have found that when the car has been sat for SEVERAL DAYS, unused, recirc was OFF.

I'm not sure if this is a deliberate design feature to prevent the cabin remaining a sealed environment for long periods.

I have never found the system to select recirc ON on its own, unless it is in auto mode. It changes recirc mode on its own rarely.

I've also found that if you push AUTO, then change vent selection, fan and recirc remain in AUTO.

If you change the fan speed, it seems to deselect auto for everything.

If you change recirc mode, everything including recirc seems to remain in auto.

It's a bit confusing at first, but this is what I've observed.

I run the AC full-time (I can't run without it for more than a few minutes without the windows misting).

I've also found:

* Aircon ON, LO temp, recirc ON is best for cooling.

* Aircon ON, 16.0 or higher temp, recirc OFF is best for heating from cold (especially in winter). Once the cold of the cabin has been eliminated, recirc ON stops it pulling in cold air from outside.

Running AUTO mode with the car in ECO MODE also results in reduced fuel consumption (better MPG) in winter. It also has the additional benefit in that when the engine is cold, it can run the heater with the fan at ZERO, so it warms as quickly as possible, then when everything engine/heater is warm, it will increase the fan speed to heat the cabin. This results in fastest warm-up of the engine and subsequently the heater.

My car has the glass roof, so gets quite cold at night (any time of year, but notably in winter) but when ambient temps are below +10 C, I find it best to run the cabin heater set to 19 or 21 in AUTO mode to keep the chill off without uneccessarily causing the ICE to run (it burns additional fuel purely for heat, and the higher the cabin temp, the longer it runs for). HI temp setting seems to run the ICE continuously, forever.

Sometimes it is necessary to run it at 23 C or higher, especially when driving into patches of fog - the cabin cools rapidly over about 30 seconds, which causes severe and sudden misting of the windows. In these conditions, fuel economy just tanks, and this is when I get the worst fuel economy.

[yossarian247]

I think this can be turned off by a dealer. When I first bought my Auris it used to turn re-circ on automatically under certain conditions, however I managed to turn this feature off using Techstream software and cable. It now never recirculates at all unless I press the button.

I keep meaning to try this on our Avensis too as it often automatically switches to recirculate in hot weather just after the engine has been started.

[Berengaria]

Reading all of the replies seems to indicate that the Yaris has the same, annoying default air recirculate mode hard wired into it as the Avensis does (which is one of the niggles that's turning me off the Avensis).

When I asked Toyota customer service if this feature could be deactivated, I was told that it could not, but that "we will take your comments on board for future product development".

At the moment, it's roughly 16c outside during the day, so if I want fresh air in the car, why would I want to set the heater to 16c to deactivate this feature, this sending in air at 16c from outside then heating it up again by 16c? Madness. As for the auto setting, that's also pointless; having the interior click age 'managed' by having a mixture of air con and recirculation whilst driving is equally pointless and just wastes fuel.

Was considering a switch to Yaris partly to escape this type of thing, but this has put me off.

[YarisHybrid2016]

I made another discovery the other day by chance!

SYSTEM OFF. Light is ON the recirc. Changed the vent to face only, and pushed the button to switch OFF recirc. I duly get ram air from outside.

Later, I switched ON the system (it was set to LO and AC ON and I switched the system on by pushing the reduce fan button). Immediately recirc came ON, which is how it was set before I switched the system OFF.

So it seems the system remembers between system ON and OFF and treats the recirc differently depending.

This behavior stopped if recirc was ON with the system OFF. It seems it only matters about the recirc configuration in system OFF.

Recirc does not do its own thing when:

System OFF and recirc is ON. Recirc follows the system ON setting.

Recirc operates automatically if:

System is OFF and recirc is OFF, and then the system is switched ON. System OFF does NOT follow the system ON setting.

I hope you can follow that...

[Heidfirst]

Just got my 2017 Avensis yesterday so still very much going through the changes & settings but I noticed that there are 2 ventilation settings that can be disabled/enabled via the Touch 2 head unit that were not there on my 2012 Touch. I wonder if those may affect this behaviour at all? Has anybody tried changing them & if so what results?

[YarisHybrid2016]

The only option on mine IIRC is "Efficient Mode". Not sure what that does at all...

[Bomber209]

Hi All, I think it stands to reason that if you select 'Auto' then the designers had a set scenario in mind. If you then go on to select a different  'Fan speed' or 'Air re-distribution' then you're going away from their set parameters and reverting back to manual. Recirc also takes into consideration in car temp, so it doesn't matter if you want cooler or hotter. system will try to use best option. 

[YarisHybrid2016]

On 9/30/2017 at 9:31 AM, Bomber209 said:

Hi All, I think it stands to reason that if you select 'Auto' then the designers had a set scenario in mind. If you then go on to select a different  'Fan speed' or 'Air re-distribution' then you're going away from their set parameters and reverting back to manual. Recirc also takes into consideration in car temp, so it doesn't matter if you want cooler or hotter. system will try to use best option. 

Once it has stabilized the temperature it favors feet/windshield mix mode at low fan setting. If it is summer and it is set to LO, it will eventually settle on face vents and modulate the fan speed.

I generally use manual mode, unless I have the heater on as I find it can control the temperature better than if I do it manually.