Rav4 plug in blowing cool air after a while

[jamiem1987]

Hi all, 2022 Rav 4 plugin - noticed this last winter and now its getting cooler again just wondering if a normal feature. Doesn't matter if driving on ev or hv:

 

When I get in the car and its cool outside with the AC set to 22 degrees inside, I instantly get warm air blowing which warms the cabin up nicely. After around half hour I notice that the drivers vent starts blowing cool air, I notice still however that the foot vents are blowing warm still, as are the middle vents below the infotainment. I've just turned the drivers side vent down to almost closed for now as it's not a massive deal.

 

May be worrying about nothing, it could just be the cabins warmed up and its then trying to cool it? Never known it in any other of my cars...

 

Feedback welcome 🙂

[Bper]

Hi Jamie,It sounds like your climate control system is just doing what it's supposed to do. When it’s cold outside, it’ll blow warm air at first to get the cabin up to 22°C quickly. But once it hits that temperature, it starts balancing things to keep it comfortable without overheating. That’s probably why you’re feeling cooler air from the driver’s vent after a while, even though the foot vents and center ones stay warm.

If you’ve got dual-zone or automatic climate control, it might also be adjusting different parts of the cabin separately, which can sometimes make certain vents feel a little cooler.

If it’s not comfortable, you could try bumping up the temperature a bit or switching to manual fan control for more control over the airflow. But from what you’re describing, it sounds like it’s just part of how it regulates the temperature.👍
 

[Flatcoat]

What settings are you using? If I use Eco on the heating I find I get more cool air blowing such I sometimes need driving gloves. 

[Nick72]

4 hours ago, jamiem1987 said:

Hi all, 2022 Rav 4 plugin - noticed this last winter and now its getting cooler again just wondering if a normal feature. Doesn't matter if driving on ev or hv:

 

When I get in the car and its cool outside with the AC set to 22 degrees inside, I instantly get warm air blowing which warms the cabin up nicely. After around half hour I notice that the drivers vent starts blowing cool air, I notice still however that the foot vents are blowing warm still, as are the middle vents below the infotainment. I've just turned the drivers side vent down to almost closed for now as it's not a massive deal.

 

May be worrying about nothing, it could just be the cabins warmed up and its then trying to cool it? Never known it in any other of my cars...

 

Feedback welcome 🙂

Air Con depends on drive mode. Driving in Eco mode puts Air Con in Eco mode I think. You can override the Air Con mode tagged to Drive Mode by pressing the button which goes Eco, Normal, Fast I think. Also check the settings for where the air goes. Screen and feet, mid, and all the combos. When say you got the thing set to put the warmed or cooled air to the screen and your feet you'll notice that some air still comes out the vents on the dash and isn't at the set temperature. Just close them.

[TonyHSD]

I can explain that now. 
No matter what settings you have set your hvac system after some time and usually it’s after around 30-40 min drive will start blowing cool fresh air from outside.
With ac on or off, in auto or manual mode , with eco on or off the system is designed to maintain the pre set cabin temperature but also to prevent fatigue and dangerous situations like feeling asleep while driving the hvac will let cool fresh air in to achieve that. 
Nothing to worry about here. You can keep your existing settings and when driving long journey and you feel cold after 40 min you can either increase temperature by 1 or 2 degrees or crack open your window for 5 min and the cooler air in will trigger more hot air out of your vents. 👌
 

[Nick72]

3 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

I can explain that now. 
No matter what settings you have set your hvac system after some time and usually it’s after around 30-40 min drive will start blowing cool fresh air from outside.
With ac on or off, in auto or manual mode , with eco on or off the system is designed to maintain the pre set cabin temperature but also to prevent fatigue and dangerous situations like feeling asleep while driving the hvac will let cool fresh air in to achieve that. 
Nothing to worry about here. You can keep your existing settings and when driving long journey and you feel cold after 40 min you can either increase temperature by 1 or 2 degrees or crack open your window for 5 min and the cooler air in will trigger more hot air out of your vents. 👌
 

Even when it's set to recirculation only?

[TonyHSD]

1 hour ago, Nick72 said:

Even when it's set to recirculation only?

Yes, if you set in recirculating mode only it will not stay like that for longer than 30 min if not even less then that and automatically will switch to air intake from outside. There are some options that you can customise with phone app and obd adapter like Carista that we have discussed in other posts.  
The Toyota hvac systems are very very smart.  They are also active after you switch off the car and locked. The system will remain life and may open and close flaps inside the air ducts to let some air ventilate the system. 
 

[Nick72]

15 minutes ago, TonyHSD said:

Yes, if you set in recirculating mode only it will not stay like that for longer than 30 min if not even less then that and automatically will switch to air intake from outside. There are some options that you can customise with phone app and obd adapter like Carista that we have discussed in other posts.  
The Toyota hvac systems are very very smart.  They are also active after you switch off the car and locked. The system will remain life and may open and close flaps inside the air ducts to let some air ventilate the system. 
 

That's actually poor engineering if it is the case. If I set to recirculation then I expect it to be recirculating permanently to keep the fumes and particulates out of the cabin if I'm out in heavy traffic. It stays lit up permanently btw. 

[TonyHSD]

15 hours ago, Nick72 said:

That's actually poor engineering if it is the case. If I set to recirculation then I expect it to be recirculating permanently to keep the fumes and particulates out of the cabin if I'm out in heavy traffic. It stays lit up permanently btw. 

Not at all. 
The systems is one of the very best of all cars. The automatic functioning is really smart. Recirculating mode, ac , temperature control and every is managed by the hvac ecu absolutely spot on. Set to recirculating mode stays for some time but then switches to outsiders air. Same when is very hot outsider’s and recirculating mode is off the car will automatically select recirculating mode on to cool down the cabin quickly. Every possible adjustment that driver needs to do in older type hvac system has been replaced by the ecu control. You can only understand how good is all,that when you switch back to old style., if you ever need to drive an entry level car again for some reason. 

[Flatcoat]

It switches from recirculating to avoid oxygen levels dropping leading to driver drowsiness. I personally think it is an excellent idea. 

[Nick72]

19 minutes ago, Flatcoat said:

It switches from recirculating to avoid oxygen levels dropping leading to driver drowsiness. I personally think it is an excellent idea. 

In that case I get that.