Motoring Discussion > Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette Miscellaneous
Thread Author: Redviper Replies: 15
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 12:54 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Redviper
Vauxhall Vectra C Non Digital Climate control

Hi All
I have my climate control on all throughout the year, with the aircon activated, works really well
No smells through the aircon, as its used all the time

However during the recent hot weather, I was looking forward to putting it on Min temperature and setting around 18 -19c
Great when you have it through the front vents icy cold, but SWMBO complains that its to cold and doesn’t want it blasting in her face so all the vents get directed at me. but if you put it to say windscreen and foot, it does not feel so cold – turn the setting to “min” and the fans blast away, set it to 18-19 and the fans ease off still powering away but not as fast – but it never gets as cold in the car – and it can still feel a bit warm when say sat in traffic under direct sunlight
I have the recirculation on

Would this be right, - is the car really at 18-19c, (I don’t have a thermometer to hand) and its still to warm for me, or is it normal for the aircon to not be so proficient this way
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 13:07 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Bromptonaut
I would have thought recircualtion should be off unless you're trying to eliminate outside smells?

Turn the vents on your wife's side off or away from her. If she's still cold buy her a fleece!!
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 13:49 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - VxFan
>> I would have thought recircualtion should be off unless you're trying to eliminate outside smells?

The AC will run more efficiently if you have the recirc on as you aren't having to cool down warm air from outside. Makes sense to switch it off occasionally to draw fresh air into the car though.

Redviper, I take it the climate control in your car isn't dual zone and you can't set the passenger side temp different to the drivers side?

From what you're saying though, it sounds correct. The cool air through the face vents on my Vectra (with full digitial climate control) is colder than through the other vents.
Last edited by: VxFan on Tue 8 Jun 10 at 13:49
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 13:07 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Zero
The VAG climate control I had in the Seat and Touran was next to useless. In full auto mode you never had control of where the air went, not was it ever near the temerature dialed up on the display.
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 13:53 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Number_Cruncher
The thing to find is the location of the temperature sensor which feedsback the signal to the controller.

On my W124, for example, the sensor is in the housing where the driver's mirror fastens to the rail at the top of the windscreen - so, if I point the vents up, the sensor becomes cold before the rest of the car, and backs off the AC, the result being the car never gets cold.

A slightly perverse feature of the W124's system is there's a fan which draws air over the sensor, but, the fan is behind the dasboard, and there's a pipe which connects the sensor and fan running round the inside of the windscreen support members. When the fan fails, the speed of the feedback system suffers, and it can take a good 10 minutes for the sensor to detect what's actually happening in the car when there has been a transient - during which time you either freeze or boil!
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 14:19 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Redviper
Hi Everyone

Yes Ill by SWMBO a fleece, and she can wear that lol

Vx Fan yes you are correct, my CC is the manual one and its not dual zone CC so it just controls the whole of the car, I’m glad though that yours is similar to mine in that the coldest air comes through the vents.

Sometimes it works well but sometimes I can never find a happy medium its either too hot, or too cold – still I’ve read that some other CC from other manufacturers does the same so im not to worried about that

The sensor is located on the top of the dash underneath the windscreen

As Zero’s VW’s ……SWMBO’s Citroen is also like that, in that you cannot control where the air comes out of when on Auto, but on mine you can because the selections are manual controlled and not digital but of course depending on how cold you actually would like it (ice cold or coldish)
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 14:50 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Boxsterboy
I thought the whole point of the 'auto' setting on A/C was that it automatically directed the air in what it thought was the best direction. If you want it in a specific direction, then you use the manual settings?
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 15:05 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Redviper
Mine is not Digital Climate, therefore you have to specify where you want the air, and adjusting the settings does indeed open and close the specfied vents.

However the Digital Aircon in the C4 (1st time I had used CC) does just that it decides where the airflow goes to
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 15:42 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Netsur
Until I managed to break the sensor in the XC90, it had the easiest and most effective climate control system I have used.

The Subarus and the S-Max all work(ed) very well, but if you need anything other than 'auto' they are more confusing to operate. However, the S-Max is very good at set and forget and I don't think I have had the change anything other than the temp when a passenger was too cold.

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 Tue 8 Jun 10 15:49 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Redviper
In The C4, I tried to create some Atmospheric condtions by turning one side to "min" and the other to "max" - obviously it didnt really do anything.

Tried it also on the New Shape Mondeo we had coming back from Bristol but that spoiled the fun by matching the oposite side with the one you where adjusting if the range was too great
Last edited by: Redviper on Tue 8 Jun 10 at 15:50
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 16:20 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - bathtub tom
>>but if you put it to say windscreen and foot

Why would you want to direct cold air to the footwells?

The various vehicles I've driven with air-con seem to perform the best when cold air is directed to face-level vents, which in turn are directed as high as possible. The theory being the hottest air is highest and doing this gives a more even temperature distribution.

One vehicle just gave an icy blast at face level. The solution was to direct it all to the demist vents.

Conversely, I know a chap who blasts maximum temperature air at maximum speed out of the face level vents during cold weather. Fries your eyeballs and your feet freeze!
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 17:13 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Redviper

>> Why would you want to direct cold air to the footwells?

I thought it would cool the car down more, and to kind of distribute the air around and stop SWMBO complaining.
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 17:23 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - Zero
The renaults I had were icy cold aircon units. I used to direct the cold air to the screen vents. This gave a nice cold head high gently cooling, no chilly breeze.

Ice used to form on the windscreen tho.

The lancer can only expell aircon air through the 4 dash board vents, but never drops below 10c. SWMBO quite likes it.

I prefer mine freezer cold.
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 17:48 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - corax
The aircon in my old E36 BMW is great, it becomes very cold seconds after turning it on, unless the car has been left in the sun all day and the dash is red hot - takes a while to cool everything down in that situation. I do use it all year though, and it gets a regas every two years, last year it also had a receiver/drier replacement with the regas as the rubber O rings on it were leaking slightly. Have you seen a receiver/drier on an E36? It's a work of art, an alloy bowl tig welded at the seams. Our Yaris is much slower to cool the air, even after a regas.

I like to direct part of the cold air to the footwells when it's really hot, because it keeps your feet nice and cool when wearing jesus creepers. My mate drives barefeet in the summer, I'm not sure I'd want to do that, but he is Australian so I'll forgive him! Apparently a lot of Aussies do the same. Just don't wear flip flops, they have a nasty habit of getting stuck in the pedals!
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 18:34 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - John H
>> >> Why would you want to direct cold air to the footwells?
>>
>> I thought it would cool the car down more, and to kind of distribute the
>> air around and stop SWMBO complaining.
>>

Cold air sinks, hot air rises.
For comfort, you want to direct cooler air to the face and hotter air to the feet.

"Why do women always feel colder than men?"
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article5106854.ece
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 Tue 8 Jun 10 21:20 
 Vauxhall Vectra C - Air-con Etiquette - mikeyb
In the C5 the dual climate is great - works really well. When the car has colled down to temp you still get a gently waft from the face level vents and rest is blown from the other vents around the cabin. The sun sensor on the dash does a good job of adjusting the airflow as you drive through direct sun into shade.

Citroen are keen to point out in the handbook that the numbers are not temperatures, but are comfort settings...????? Wonder why they chose to start at 16 through 28....

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