How 'cold' should air con get?

It was very hot today where I live - 30 degrees celsius. Swiched on the air con and manually set it to 15oC which is the coldest setting available on my menu. Didn't seem to emit what I'd describe as an icy blast though. How cold does yours get - would you describe it as in any way 'icy'? I'm guessing the 15oC is the temperature that the cabin is supposed to eventually achieve on this setting, not the temperature of the cold air coming from the cooler.

I remember driving a Toyota Celica back in the late 1990s and what can only be described as dry ice came out the cooling vents on max cold setting - exceedingly cold. All cars I've owned since the 1990s have had air con and I'd say they've all had colder air on max-cold setting than my PHEV. Do I need a re-gas?

I find that it is pretty useless on "Auto" - set the temperature to 19 or 20 degrees and turn the fan up high with the arrow buttons - that seems to work pretty well. Put it on recirculate until the temperature has come down a fair bit too.

It should get pretty cold. I never use Auto so I don't know what it does on that; I prefer to control it with the temperature. I have found that if I leave it on my normal 'mode' setting, which is 'feet and screen', then not much cold air comes out of the 'face' vents, even on 15 degrees and with the fan right up; when it's this warm (about 5 days a year here), I put it on 'feet and face' and it gets pretty cold.... in fact today I had to switch the air con off after a few minutes as it got too cold....
HTH

Funny, I was swearing at mine yesterday for just this. I've previously taken it in to Mitsy for a check and they said everything was working correctly , no leaks and fully pressurised, so guess it's just rubbish.

Did notice that it takes a long time to drop the temperature but eventually the air does become cooler. However it's not of the ice cold nature. I was running on battery and it took half an hour before the air was noticeably cooler.

I'm with jdsx on this - at 15c and recirculating I have to eventually cut the "feet" mode and reduce the fan speed or I'm too cold I call mine the mobile fridge because its white and chills better than my old Avensis.

Titan said:

Funny, I was swearing at mine yesterday for just this. I've previously taken it in to Mitsy for a check and they said everything was working correctly , no leaks and fully pressurised, so guess it's just rubbish.

Did notice that it takes a long time to drop the temperature but eventually the air does become cooler. However it's not of the ice cold nature. I was running on battery and it took half an hour before the air was noticeably cooler.

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Do you drive on "Eco"? One of its functions is to cripple the aircon. I certainly would not describe the PHEV aircon as arctic, but it seems to be no worse than on any other car I have owned or driven in the last ten years.

Well I wouldn't say it's a huge problem - perhaps the air con is only designed to deliver the minimum amount of cooling required to achieve the desired temperatures (eventually) in order to save electricity and/or petrol. The air con compressor I think is electric, not then presumably powered by a belt from the petrol engine. I forgot the to try the recirculate mode, although I think it automatically selects recirculate if I manually set to 15oC - but then I usually switch recirculate off. Apparently it's a really good idea to have recirculate on if you're cueing in traffic, 'cos of the pollution from all those nasty, old fashioned diesel engines.

I suppose I need to try a longer run on a hot day (I usually do less than 20 miles a day - which is handy when it comes to running on electric) and then see if the sensation I previously enjoyed in other cars of air con 'shock' occurs when I open the door and experience just how hot it is outside.

There seems to be advice from those in air con world that systems should be re-gassed, for various reasons, every 3 years (some suggest 2) so presumably to maintain the systems ability to cool the batteries when required mine should be due a re-gas anyway. I do use the air con to ensure the seals remain lubricated.

NightPHEVer said:

I forgot the to try the recirculate mode, although I think it automatically selects recirculate if I manually set to 15oC - but then I usually switch recirculate off. Apparently it's a really good idea to have recirculate on if you're cueing in traffic, 'cos of the pollution from all those nasty, old fashioned diesel engines.

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Perhaps this is the answer - with recirculate off you are trying to cool down the fresh hot air being drawn into the car. At 30c this is going to be almost impossible, especially with the fan going full blast. :idea:

I drove abot 390 miles yesterday and it was 28 deg. On ECO it just about gives cool air. Forgot about recirculation. But it enough for comfort. These new aircons are not like the old cars giving out chilling air with no auto. They are supposed to drop outside air by 4-5 deg .

I find it fine if you use it on manual. I think its the auto setting thats too conservative in increasinf the fan speed thats the problem.

For me the aircon is OK even at 41 °C (never had more ), and Auto mode is my preference. I just don't take the indicated T° setting in consideration, I prefer to follow my feeling.
Yesterday I had a 200 km trip with an external temperature between 27 and 33 °C, and I made the setting vary between 21 and 19.5 °C.
The recirculation switched automatically during the trip, I think it was when the external T° reached 30°.

Had a chance to try the aircon this morning - though it was only 21 degrees outside, the car had been sitting in direct sunlight and was fairly toasty inside. Auto (and 15 degrees on the settings) wound the fan speed up to maximum. Neither playing with 'Eco' mode nor increasing the selected temperature to 20 made any noticeable difference. It was certainly blasting air as chilled as I ever expect to need it .

ECO mode makes a difference -the fan goes a bit slower- in less extreme conditions than setting 15 degrees in a very hot car

And it doesn't shock me that you obtained the same result at 20 °C... at least during the first minute or so.

The A/C in my PHEV gets very cold. So cold that I often have to run it at 25C and/or turn it into economy mode. I would have to say that across the ten or so new cars I have owned in the last 20 years, the PHEV has the best A/C of the lot. And this is not in a mild climate like the UK. This experience is in the hot and humid climate of Brisbane, Australia. Last summer, the temperature was regularly over 35C and with high humidity. The ambient temperature peaked at 44C one Sunday and the interior of the PHEV was fine. (Mind you, it rips through battery power when running the A/C so hard.) The only complaint is that the sound of the electric inverter compressor, cooling fans, and electric water pump makes the car sound like a UFO getting ready for departure.

whynot said:

The only complaint is that the sound of the electric inverter compressor, cooling fans, and electric water pump makes the car sound like a UFO getting ready for departure.

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I can confirm that it can be impressive (only out of the car luckily), especially since there is no engine noise

My air con seems pretty rubbish but my oh keeps turning recirc off. Has anyone else noticed the snowflake flashing- mine is doing this whilst barely cooling the air at all. Does it mean it can't cope? Presume I need to keep recirc on...

I think flashing aircon symbol may well indicate a fault somewhere in the system. I should get it checked. According to aircon specialists gas/oil should be changed every 2/3 years. Not at all sure that this is included in Mitsubishi standard service schedule though, don't think I've noticed it mentioned in my service book. I would think a Mitsubishi dealer would point this out by year 3 though.

For all my car's air conditioning, my politics was "as long as it works, don't touch it".

I'm really hoping that the same engineers/designers who make Mitsubishi household de-humidifiers were involved in the design of the electronic air conditioning system of the PHEV. I've had two Mitsubishi Household dehumidifiers (MJ-E16-VX and MJ-E14CG around £320 each) for at least five years now and they've been utterly reliable, and above all else really quiet. Which is more than I can say for any other brand of dehumidifier that I've owned (wobbly old Georgian house that needs more than it's fare share of de-humidifing otherwise black mould etc. will result) over the years. Other brands - some equally expensive to Mitsubishi - are invariably hopelessly unreliable and/or very noisy.

My flat is equipped with Mitsubishi air-conditioners since 2005, in the living room and 3 bedrooms : no failure, no maintenance at all (excepting cleaning the filters every year of course)