luxpow Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Its very inconvenient to close the ac vents on the passenger and rear seats when you are the only person in the car after dropping your family or friends. Would be great to a button to close/open vents electronically to save energy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twintornados Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Maybe the family or friend being dropped can close the vent on the way out of the car? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Why would you want to close the vents? You need to cool the entire car not just the driver's side. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luxpow Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 Maybe the family or friend being dropped can close the vent on the way out of the car? They can but its very easy to forget and reminding them would make me sound like sheldon cooper Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sullynd Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 How would it save energy? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luxpow Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 Why would you want to close the vents? You need to cool the entire car not just the driver's side. Many times you dont need the entire car to cool down, just blow some coolish air on the driver. In those cases, having all the vents open : 1. Makes more noise 2. Consumes more energy 3. Reduces force of air coming from driver vent Ofcourse, the auto climate will always try to cool the entire car down but I usually have that off anyways. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luxpow Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 (edited) How would it save energy? Cooling just one person ought to take less energy than cooling 5/7 people. That, of course, opens up the bigger question on where the temp sensors should be placed. I guess they are currently placed to measure the average temp of whole car. In an ideal world they would measure the temp of human bodies "currently present" in the car. Oh well, I will just switch the auto climate off (most of the time) till that day comes. Edited June 25, 2016 by luxpow Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Actually closing the other vents will make it louder and increase the air coming from the open vents. But you will get more air. I just think you can get all the air you need from the driver's vents while still cooling the entire car. And you're not saving any energy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 This comes up a lot - why don't you like the auto climate control? I leave it on auto and just adjust the temp up and down as needed. I hit Max A/C if it's really hot until it cools down, then go back to 68 to 72 after it cools down a bit. If the air is blowing too hard I just raise the temp a little, then lower it later. The larger the temp differential between what you set and the ambient temp inside the vehicle, the harder it blows and as you near the set temp it raises or lowers the air temp and the fan speed as needed. It's always worked great for me in all of our vehicles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luxpow Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 Actually closing the other vents will make it louder and increase the air coming from the open vents. But you will get more air. I just think you can get all the air you need from the driver's vents while still cooling the entire car. And you're not saving any energy. Thats true only if the auto climate is on. When you take manual control, you set the temp and force of air blowing at you. With auto climate off, there is nothing trying to cool the entire car. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luxpow Posted June 25, 2016 Author Share Posted June 25, 2016 This comes up a lot - why don't you like the auto climate control? I didnt say I dont like it. As a SW engineer I think its well positioned between perfection as usability. Technically, it can be made better by lets say allowing configuration of how fast the user wants the car to cool down, but it will be a documentation nightmare and no one will ever understand it still. So it is good in its current state. I leave it on auto and just adjust the temp up and down as needed. I hit Max A/C if it's really hot until it cools down, then go back to 68 to 72 after it cools down a bit. If the air is blowing too hard I just raise the temp a little, then lower it later. Thats almost what I do too. Except, when it is really hot, I roll down the windows first to bring the car temp down as much as possible without putting load on freshly started engine. The I simply hit the auto button with temp set to 72ish. Occasionally I have go all manual control when it becomes impossible to hear the radio, phone or other person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
akirby Posted June 25, 2016 Share Posted June 25, 2016 Thats true only if the auto climate is on. When you take manual control, you set the temp and force of air blowing at you. With auto climate off, there is nothing trying to cool the entire car. What I meant was once you're in manual mode with the fan set on a specific speed, closing the other vents will result in more air to the driver's side therefore more noise. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
luxpow Posted June 26, 2016 Author Share Posted June 26, 2016 What I meant was once you're in manual mode with the fan set on a specific speed, closing the other vents will result in more air to the driver's side therefore more noise. Yeah but you can use the fan control to slow the fan down and it will stay slow :-) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
twintornados Posted June 26, 2016 Share Posted June 26, 2016 At one point, such "luxuries" like power seats, power windows, tilt and telescopic wheel, auto dim lights mirrors etc, were only on the most expensive luxury cars....in time, electronic vent controls will be just another "tweak" to set one luxury car brand apart from another.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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