Warm air from coldest vent setting
 

I have had my RX8 for about a month now, a 04' GT with 36K miles and the "cold" air vent really isn't all that cold. The air conditioning works just fine, and the temperature dial is working correctly (from 0 to 16) as it is supposed to. It still controls the temperature just fine, but just when the vent is on the coldest mode from outside air, the air coming is more or less luke warm as soon as the car gets warmed up.

Is this a normal function of how much heat comes off the rotary, or does something need to be fixed? My solution now is to just roll the windows down or put on the AC.

I tried searching, but couldn't find a definitive answer to this one. Thanks in advance,

Steve

i was driving on the highway one time and my car did the same thing.
I noticed it was on the outside air setting. I switched it to inside air and it stopped.

sometimes i notice it will suck in whatever type air is outside the car whether on cold or hot.


Not 100% sure if this is normal just letting you know Ive experienced it also.

you are in the UK or Europe?

Pittsburgh, PA

Yes, this is normal.

However the car is 6 years old now.

Replace the freon.

well yeah if you have the vent using outside air then the air is going to be slightly warmed by the engine heat.

what did you mean when you wrote 0-16 temp dial is working correctly?

Glad to hear that this is normal. Guess it's recirculate, windows, or A/C (which works just fine so not a refrigerant issue).

I am not used to engines that put out this much heat, as the car I just got rid of was a 98 Honda civic and the other car I work on is a Porsche 914 impossible for vent air to be warmed by the engine since the engine is located behind the passengers.

In terms of the 0-16, it's the diagnostic to see if they temperature dial is working. It's in a thread somewhere here, but for the life of me I cannot find it again. Basically, turn radio on, hold the on button and the (seek up) button for a second until some words like "A/C" illuminate on the display. You will then get a numerical read on the position of the temperature knob, 0 being coldest all the way to the left, and 16 being warmest. Move the knob, and the number changes.

Apparently, some folks have had trouble with it breaking, and I checked it out thinking that if mine got didn't get all the way to 0 and stuck at 3 or something, the computer really wouldn't know that I wanted the vent air to be as cold as it could be.

Thanks for the help!

ok thanks. i didnt read it as you using the diagnostic at first. I thought perhaps you were a climate controlled car so that was why I asked if you were in UK/Europe