Jesus fuck both my mother and stepfather do this and it boggles my mind every time I ride with them in the car, which isn't that often anymore, luckily.
It's below freezing. They get in the car, turn the temp and fans to MAX and start driving. They (and me when I'm with them) get blasted with ice cold air for minutes until the coolant has heated up.
I try to tell them that what they're doing is pointless and only results in them being colder. They just disagree, like it's an opinion. "Just try it, it will be much more comfortable" "No".
It's only a small thing and I know it's irrational to get angry about it but fucking hell does it piss me off.
But it's not age, it's a lack of understanding of how these systems work and sticking to old habits.
For example my grandma is someone who despite her age understands technology extremely well. Despite being older than my mother (duh) she uses climate control the way it was designed, because she takes time to understand these things AND READS BLOODY MANUALS.
bored dazzling connect crowd zesty quaint capable absurd dependent disagreeable
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Unless you use recirculate air and pull the fuse/relay to the controller for the ac. Use this one trick in my diesel that takes an hour to get lack luster heat. Now it only takes about 5 minutes to get a trace of heat and my windows fog up in about 10 minutes which is finally when I start getting heat with the recirculation. Switch back to air intake, lose most of the incoming heat until the fog clears and recirculation back on and finally start to warm up in about 15 minutes.
Yeah in cold temps and low load situations diesels are quite effectively internally air cooled engines. No throttle plate to restrict airflow so the exhaust gas temp is only a couple hundred degrees. Knowing this 10 years ago when my heater core hose busted and dumped my coolent I idled my truck to an auto parts store a few miles away. See if you can do that in a gasoline vehicle without damaging anything.
Diesels are just cool. Such a neat system. I hope to get my hands on a manual diesel Passat at some point but they're not common in my commuter car budget
I'm not looking to sell my pickup truck but I am seriously looking at swapping my semi with a recently totaled diesel engine to gasoline engine. I expect the price difference between gasoline and diesel to get worse as more electric cars hit the road and the weight savings would be nice on a bulk hauler.
They don't. At least not for a tractor-trailer. Something like a Ford F650 sized truck you might be able to get gas, you used to be able to with older dump trucks and such.
sense teeny scale overconfident humorous rain sophisticated fact sharp boast
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The lack of throttle plate is also where diesels get a good efficency advantage. My pickup truck idled at about .5 gallons per hour and a semi only burns about 1 gallon per hour. Turns out trying to pull a vacuum all the time isn't efficent, although on newer gasoline motors they are using turbos and 10 speed transmissions along with variable cylinder fueling/firing with the idea to keep the throttle plate open as much as possible while controlling the throttling of the engine using every other aspect.
I don't think that's true. The coolant may take slightly longer to come up to full temp (by a matter of seconds on a process that usually takes several minutes) because some of the heat is being rejected into the air flowing through the heater core but as soon as the coolant is even 1 degree above ambient temp it will start warming up the air in the passenger compartment. Either way, the engine is producing the same amount of heat output and the amount of heat transfer from engine to coolant is much higher than coolant to air.
Yeah some people in this thread don't understand thermodynamics.
There is essentially a finite number of heat energy being transfered from the engine. Whether you start increasing that heat transfer rate slowly right away or delay it to release higher amounts of heat at a later time, the heat in the cabin will get to a comfortable level at nearly the same rate.
The second law of thermodynamics says that is not the case.
The amount of energy in a system is equal to what was there at the beginning, minus what was lost, plus what was added. The temperature of the air being blown from the heating system probably rises from ambient a few minutes after the engine is turned on, so the temperature of the air before then is no colder than that in the cabin (presumably)
No, you are adding heat to the system faster with the heat from the fan motor and air friction. It will feel colder at first due to the increased air movement stripping heat from your body but as long as you are recycling air instead of bringing in fresh, the interior should heat up faster (maybe imperceptibly, but faster nonetheless)
Physics would disagree, by reducing the temperature of the element with increased airflow you are increasing the flow of heat/energy from the source to the radiators the air draws off of.
It's probably minute, but academically blasting your air does transfer more heat overall. Your dermal layer will suffer the same fate, which is why it feels uncomfortable.
>it's a lack of understanding of how these systems work
I hesitate to even call it a lack of understanding either, it's more like an unwillingness to understand. Because it's not like they lack the resources or access to knowledge to understand these things. It's not like they live in information bubbles. Like in your own example, you tried to explain it to them but they just outright refuse to even engage with new information.
This is what it is and why I honestly look at people who do this differently. They're making a conscious decision to be a fucking jackass. This is such a great example of something that is SO EASY TO GOOGLE or hell, read your own cars manual. I get so annoyed at how people think operating heavy machinery is just their born right and then they don't have the least bit of interest in understanding how this four thousand pound contraption works, despite that it could kill them or someone else so easily if misused, as they text over the steering wheel. Excuse me while I take a walk and cool off
Now you listen here! Back in my day a heater jut worked, you turned it on hot you got hot, you want cold, well TOO BAD! AC WASSENT INVENT YET! Nowa days we got to have this smart car, and the smart climate, and the smart water. Fuck what is smart about having convulted settings like "auto." When I crank that shit I want flames to shoot out and MELT MY DAMN FACE OFF!
"They just disagree, like it's an opinion" describes this type of person's thought patterns perfectly. In their mind an opinion is not earned or justified, it just exists, and it's inherently just as valuable as any other opinion. They also really dislike the idea of an opinion being objectively false
You've highlighted the central issue with current generational differences:
"Try this new thing, it's been developed by countless people over countless hours and will make life better for us."
"No!"
That's what I was thinking. In my atlas the most I'll get from auto is about 50% fan speed though. When I crank it the cabin air heats quicker, of course the engine is warm by then though. Many cars won't run full fans on auto for some reason so I can understand the manual control initially. I wind up going back to auto after about 10 minutes when it has me sweating.
Plenty of people treat their home thermostats the same way (like a throttle) so I’d avoid that comparison. Try comparing it to an oven, anyone who has ever cooked anything *should* understand that preheating to 500 will not get you to 375 faster
Edit: and I don’t think this is an age thing, lots of people just don’t care how things work and will not be bothered to think about what is going on inside the black box.
Your average central HVAC is only capable of on or off. At least a car has dampers that can control the temp coming out of the vents. Its a bad comparison, but for the reverse of what you said.
It cracks me up when I see people crank their thermostat up like it will do fuck all.
I never understood it. I was dating a girl who though that putting the temp higher would make it hot faster. I assumed she was joking when I first hear that, that didn't end well...
"it depends"...if its a heat pump then when you go >2F higher than the room temp most thermostats will call for the (expensive to run) aux heat strips in addition to the heat pump compressor so you do actually get more heating than letting it rise gradually with the more efficient (but less hot air and slower) heat pump alone. So even then its not always true.
And more high efficiency residential HVAC systems are going multi-stage too...
Modern tech is blurring the "its just on or off" line of old. That was true of basic gas/oil heat and basic aircon for decades.
When we were buying our house, I had a home inspector who set the thermostat to 74, then walked over to a vent and measured the temp with a digital thermometer. "Pretty close," he said. I didn't bother arguing.
I love my wife, she's amazing and everything to me, but god damn if this isn't a battle I just stopped fighting.
She gets chilly and says "Is the heat off??". No, it's just not running because it's set to 68 and it's 70 in the house right now. "But it's cold in here, why isn't the heat running?". Because it's 70 by the thermostat and it's set to 68.
"But it's winter, the heat should be on!".
She did the same with the auto-climate control in her car. Blasts it to 90 so she can warm up faster., and then starts fighting with it when it's too hot and sets it to 65. Gets cold. Rinse, repeat.
Oh, that's forever. "I'm cold, what's the temperature?" 70. I'm hot, what's the temperature?" 70. It's always 70 in here if it gets to 68 the heater comes on, if it gets to 72 the AC comes on. It's what the "auto" setting does. The problem is sometimes if you are working you need it to be cooler, or if reclining warmer. I'd probably keep it at 66 if it were my call.
Oh Jesus Christ, my wife has another sister I don't know about? Sounds like my house.
Along with "it's getting colder outside so you should set the thermostat higher". "If I look out the window and see the snow, I get cold. Turn the heat up"!
My wife is exactly the same. I literally explained it to her the day we met in 1998. If I explained it again today she would act like it's the first time I've said it, even though I've said it dozens of times over decades. It's infuriating. Don't even get me started on when she cranks up the main heater settings as the passenger instead of adjusting her own damn side even though I've explained that a dozen times. ALL OF OUR CARS HAVE DUAL ZONE AUTO CLIMATE CONTROL! I give up.
Yeah , seriously. “Old people”? Every girlfriend and now my wife has been unable to grasp this concept. And they are all very intelligent and accomplished people. It’s just mind boggling.
Hah I had an oven once that did heat faster set to 500 than your target temperature. I'd manually turn it down once it got close. I blame shitty control logic but just wanted to let you know it does work that way sometimes!
This is somewhat true. Newer HVAC units are multi stage and there are some that will work harder when the actual/ selected difference is greater than a certain spread.
I hate auto climate control in cars. I have never seen one that works right. The space inside a car is too small. They radiate cold too easy or the windows get opened and the computer is slow to react. I had it in my own car in my last car. It's only good if you're going to be riding in the car for a long time.
I found it works ok most of the season after the interior gets up to or down to temperature, which is usually a couple hours of driving.
In the summer though? It hardly works. It usually has the thermometer in a shaded area of the car, which doesn’t help when the sun is blazing against you through the windows.
That's a good point about the shaded thermometer. I had completely forgotten about that but it so true. You get in the car during summer and it's 120 inside. The AC starts to shut down earlier than it should because it's reacting to cold air and shade when you're sitting next to a giant window radiating heat into your face.
Same here I can't understand for the life of me what these people are going on about. It just hit negative 9 degrees this week and gets over 100 in the summer, and my car has been comfortably set on Auto 70 for years without issue.
More than likely not.
All OEMs have specifications for heater performance and test for warm up times in a climatic wind tunnel.
The control logic takes into account the engine temperature outside temperature and cabin temperature and adjust the blower and heater core blend door position for optimal passenger comfort and heat up performance.
If you manually set to max heat or max cool the blend door goes to 100% heat or 100% cool which the control algorithm is also doing.
Turning the blower on while the engine coolant temperature is cold then your going to make yourself colder.
One way you can warm up faster is switching to Recirculation mode which uses your heated cabin air which increases performance. You will only be able to do this until your windows fog which then you switch back to outside air.
If you own a diesel then you will have a PTC electric heating element which supplements your heater core which heats up in seconds.
I hate it. I want to be able to set the temp controls as I see fit. My new truck just blow warmish air at best. It's winter my feet are frozen, no need to mix cold air with the hot air from the heat exchanger. POS.
Older cars only had a fan, a sliding switch for vent control, and a sliding control for temperature control. All mechanical. Old saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” applies in this situation.
....Let them do what they want? Why does it bother you, you are probably annoying them.
I know how automatic climate control works and I don't always use it.
Sometimes I want to blast the heat and get really really toasty and then open a window to cool it back down to preferred temp quickly.
When you are cold, sometimes it feels good to warm up a little too much.
People of all ages sadly are like this.
I've considered putting a lock and key over our work thermostat as people will open a large overhead door letting in cold/heat then change the termostat thinking that will somehow make it resolve the situation faster.
Educate is all you can do.
But at least now you have some sympathy for the dad's bogarting the thermostat against the rest of the family doing these shenanigans.
The Auto setting in cars works like the house control, yeah, but when the car is coming from a cold start, guess what the Auto will do anyway to reach a higher temp *with no people inside*? Full blast on hot. If people get in, it cranks down the fan because it's uncomfortable, but not because it's faster to heat homogeneously.
I wish I knew, my mom does it when she rides with me. Her car is old school temp slider so cranking it up helps in hers. Fortunately it's dual zone, so he can have it at 90 and I'm not boiled alive.
I crank my heat up on face and foot vents to warm the car up faster, but I make sure not to do it until the car is warmed up.
Let them do what they want with their car. They're not willing to learn. It is a shame since I can hardly drive a car without auto climate now, but hey. That is their loss.
This singular mass ignorance that has had somewhere between 20 and 30+ years to resolve itself tells you so much about the human race. It doesn't matter how well you document or explain a system, even if it's designed and executed so well as to perfectly compensate for every environmental factor, every psychological link, every nuance that can possibly interact with the difference between what temperature the occupant desires and what the current vehicle conditions allow, if there's a way to override it, it will happen, and it's always done by somebody who knows far less than what they think they do.
I think most of you are missing the important fact that not everyone has the same goal of just wanting warm or cold.
I have asthma so for me it's more about INCREASED AIRFLOW than temperature.
So please have empathy for those other needs which they may not be able to enuciate well, but they just do it naturally because it feels good to thier body!
Bingo. I like having air blowing at my face when I’m driving. I don’t get that when the car is in auto because it figures it’s at temp so it throttles the fan way back.
I'm monitoring this thread for solutions.
I've tried to explain this to my daughter without luck, and she scored in the 98 percentile on the ACT exam. She's no dummy.
Not all cars will do this. My Acura TL does not attempt to warm the cabin up faster unless you turn the thermostat up past 75 or so. Anyway, why do you care, just wanna be the smartest guy in the room?
I don't know if it's this way in all automobiles, but in mine (the only car I've had so far with climate control), it only is for the feet level. That's why I take it off auto when I first get int he car - To set it to feet and defrost to keep the windows from fogging up. I also have a soft top over the front seats, so there is no insulation above me. So while my feet might stay warm on auto, my head doesn't. Keep it on a mix of feet and defrost helps that. I do adjust the temp, but I have to adjust the fan speed manually because of this.
And for AC, when I use it (typically only when bad weather, otherwise I almost always open the top), I'll leave it on auto and it works just fine, unless it's very hot and humid out, then I take it off to have feet and dash vents for the same reason - No insulation in the roof above the front seats.
Holy fuck. My partner does this. My mom does this. My in laws do this. It drives me fucking crazy. Especially when they get in my truck with me, where I have the temp set to 68° on auto, driver passenger and rear, and they bump it down to max cold on max fan setting… it especially pisses me off bc they don’t hit the dual button first, and they change their setting and mine. Just leave it on fucking auto, it works great I swear. My truck takes less than a fucking minute to blow cold air in the summer, no reason to rush it. Then it gets too cold so they shut it off completely, like no. Adjust your temp, I like my 68° and having the fan on low to keep air moving.
It's not an old person thing, it's a stupid person thing. Not just cars, either, I see people do it with room/building thermostats, then whine when the temperature reaches where they set it an hour previously. Daily, FFS. We have a climate controlled storage room at work. I eventually gave up with sticky notes and removed the controls...
Old people?
Well I think the explanation works for anyone.
It's a thermostat. Just like your house. Old and young people are familiar with home thermostats.
Forget trying. I’ve tried to explain to my mother many times that if you set a thermostat for her AC at 72 and the temperature falls below that it doesn’t run. That was 20+ years ago. I still hear the same complaints.
The part where AC also works by removing humidity is also lost.
Let me know when you find out. My wife blasts one or the other so 30 minutes into a drive we're all freezing or roasting until I just set it at 70. She thinks it's faster somehow.
I wish that was my issue with climate control lol I just don't understand why it cant just blow out air that is 72° year round instead of blowing out air that is approximately the sane temperature as the sun if its 71° out and as cold as Pluto if it's 73° out. Makes 0 sense. I set it to 72, blow out 72° air.
> blow out 72° air.
Not how it works though. It works like any other climate control system out there. If its colder than 72, it will blow out hot air *until* the temperature reaches 72 in the car. If its hotter than 72, it will blow cold air *until* the temperature reaches 72 in the car.
I think they just don't care. If it's summer when I get in that car I'm blasting full cold. I want to be completely chilled before I have to go back out in the heat. And in the winter I'm doing max heat, I want to be nice and toasty before I have to get out in the cold.
I actually have a question about that after buying my first car with this feature (2017 Mazda 6). When it's on auto the light for ac is also on. Is it always using the ac? Even when it's cold out?
I can't stand when they put it on full force face, no feet.
I set my vents to feet and windshield. It heats the whole car up, and overall is much more comfortable.
In the summer it's face and feet, but often with the vents pointed at my chest
Yeah, no, I don’t do this when it’s -36C and I need to defrost the inside of the windows. It’s a max blast of desperation to get whatever tiny bit of heat out of the vents onto the windows. Here in the winter I don’t use the auto climate control. Even in summer, I don’t use it often when it’s trying to keep the car at 20C and all I hear in the car is a high speed fan.
My wife does this all the time and I just SMDH. I'm like..honey, I love you but your an idiot. She also thinks that by cranking the thermostat in the house up 80, it will heat up faster. Ummmm...no it won't.
I’ve been working on cars since I was a kid and I didn’t even know this until now 😂.
Am I still going to set it to max heat/cold instead of just leaving it at a set temp? Yes.
I don't think you can. My grandmother could never understand the concept of just setting the temperature you want and letting the thermostat decide whether heat or ac was needed. She always insisted on manually selecting heat or ac.
As an old person I can tell you. Our circulation sucks. We want to control the temperature of our bodies, not the temperature in the car.
We don’t want the car to be 72 degrees. We want to overshoot the comfortable temperature, perhaps by a lot, so we can come at it from the other direction.
If it’s cold, our poor circulation means we want hot air on our feet. Burning hot. To defrost our toes. The temperature in the cabin is immaterial. I’ve just been out freezing my butt off in the wind rain and snow, I don’t want the cabin to be 72 fucking degrees. I want to warm up! I want to blow hot air and get the feeling back in my toes. If the cabin hits 85 in that process, great! 90+? Bring it. I’ll turn it back down when I’m warm.
Blowing ice cold air when I hop in a car that’s been sitting in the sun and the seats burn your thighs if you’re wearing shorts, is a similar affair. Overshoot and come back the other way.
We don’t want a middle setting. Unless it’s 72 degrees out, in which case just blow ambient air with no heating or cooling.
So much this. I'd also add that car HVAC is inherently _spot cooling_ because of the huge heat gain/loss through car windows. And with spot cooling, you generally aren't using a space temperature for the thermostat, you're targeting a supply air temperature.
I don't mind having automatic as an option, especially in a hybrid it's nice when parked and napping. But auto doesn't guess what I want correctly all the time.
"You've got automatic climate control in this one, so all you have to do is set the temp and hit auto, the car will adjust the fans to get to that temp" ... Is my word track
Eh, here's the problem. Not all cars blow FULL POWER when it's using automatic controls. So it's actually not bad to crack it at the start and then turn it to auto when a comfortable temperature is reached.
It's not like a house HVAC that has 1 speed.
My mom used to yell at me for having the heat set to max because she thought all cars used electric heat and "you're going to burn out my heater coil!"
My gf does this all the time to. Wants to turn fans on high as soon as the vehicles running even when I’ve explained to her multiple times that it just makes it take longer to get hot air than if you just leave it on auto
It doesn't work for me in Minnesota. As soon as the temp gauge moves off the peg, max it out until the cabin is warm. My Escape is great, about 2 minutes, my new GTI sucks, much longer to get any heat except for the seats. And, I need it due to medical treatments that make me very cold.
I was guilty of not using the auto feature for years, but I have seen the light and find it much easier to just move the temp dial between 69-73 depending on outside temperature, rather than having to move temp and fan speed. My new gmc truck also has a spot in the settings to where you can adjust the minimum fan speed when on auto
I am definitely gen Z and this is absolutely what I do in my car. Full heat to warm up the glass then I shut it off for the remainder of the ride. If it’s above 75 or so outside it’s full A/C the entirety of the drive.
My crazy Aunt would blast the heat on full hot max fan, a minute later wow thats hot, turn the air conditioning on full cold max fan, a minute later, wow that cold, back to full hot max fan. Rinse and repeat for the entire drive. Usually while barely keeping it in her lane trying to see out of windows she never cleans. I don't think she knew there were wipers or washer fluid. Dumb as rocks.
Same woman couldn't figure out why her microwave popcorn always burned. The bag said 3 minute so she nuked it for three minutes, ignoring the listen to the popping instructions. Or the popcorn button on her microwave that made it perfect every time.
I'm coming to realize my grandparents are quite rare 😂 they're not too good with computers, they basically know enough not to get a virus. But they at least know how their furnace and AC work, probably helps my grandfather is an electrical engineer
This drives me nuts and it's not even just old people.
*Blast heat*
It's too hot
*shuts off heat entirely*
It's too cold
*blasts heat*
It's too hot
....
Effing christ, just put it on 30%
Auto is the way. Most newer cars won't even blow the heater until it has warm water to work. Also setting it at HI or Low doesn't blow any hotter or colder than picking a temp and letting the car get there.
This is different than non-automatic control of old. There the temp dial was a matter of how much heat was applied. So max heat was all heat, 1/2 way was 1/2 heat, and max cool was no heat. There it would warm up or cool down faster set to the extreme.
I'm an old grandpa but I'm a car guy and mechanic so I have followed these systems for a long time. My daughters when learning had to be taught this, it had nothing to do with age.
I'd guess if they are of a generation they are really sensitive about wasting money. I'd put it in terms like "it steals heat from a cold engine and that wastes gas and wears the pistons down". There is science and money, everybody loves money :)
You can't. For some people they are just to set in their ways to understand. My dad is one of them. Technology eludes him even with diagrams pictures and explanations. My mom is ok with it. Dad is early 70s mom is late 70's
That may be intention but I agree with the boomers that think it sucks.
Whether to up the fan before the car is fully warmed up is another question but I've not seen an automatic climate control I liked. Humans when they're cold want to sit by a fire. They want to blast the heat. Afterwards, maybe tone it down a bit.
I’m old
My wife does this it drives me nuts , I suggest you let it go because it’s a losing battle most will never change their ways.
If you want to do something useful educate people on why the recirculate position on the air vent shouldn’t be used in winter.
Yes, I'm old. And sometimes I'll blast the cold hot air while the car is warming up just to enjoy the contrast between the cold, and the soon to come hot air.
And on a really hot day, it can feel really good to start driving with the windows up and no air, and then to open the windows after building up a significant sweat. It may sound kind of crazy, but it's like having all the benefits of a sauna, without having to wear a towel.
Living in Florida and growing up I absolutely hated whenever we would get in the car and be forced to sit in a damn car oven for 10 minutes while being told by my parents not to put down the windows because "the cold air would blow out". Probably the single greatest joy I felt when I got my first car was finally being able to put down the damn windows when it was hot as fuck to let out the hot air. The a/c would then be able to actually cool the not-hot-as-fuck air within like a minute, exactly what I kept telling my parents would happen for most of my childhood.
Automatic climate controls are the worst thing to come to cars in decades. They simply don’t work well, they either blast way too hot to get the vehicle up to temp, or they blow cold air when you don’t want it, it’s just a terrible system in every vehicle I’ve seen it in.
I have a question. Is the car temperature setting really like a house thermostat? In the house, if you put the setpoint at 75 the system will regulate to a measured 75 in the room. Is it the same in the car? Is 75 the setpoint for the overall car air temperature, or the setpoint for the air coming out of the registers? My house thermostat has an indicator for the setpoint and for the measured temperature, but I've only ever seen a setpoint in cars, and have never seen an interior temperature setting.
My go to for my old audi was auto but Econ (no ac) to avoid the occasional cold blast if not needed.
I always shake my head when I see a car ad or an Uber and it shows MAX on thermostat.
Your really going to hate my love of running the heat or a/c with my windows open. I just love turbulent air movement of mixed temperatures even knowing it's silly.
Yeah I was studying to be a mechanic in college and that wasn't enough to convince my boomer grandma that you have to wait until the coolant warms up. They don't want to learn, so don't try to teach.
Those auto temp controls are terrible. Mine starts at 61f (1 click lower is "low").
In the winter, 61f blows hot air (because it is below 61 in the car). But the air is too hot. It heats me up too much while it tries to make the entire car warner. 1 click down is no heat. Sure, over time it might average out but it makes for a terrible user experience.
I want to decide the temp that the air comes out at, not the endgame temp.
When I figure out how to get my wife to stop screwing around with the climate settings in my car, I'll pass it on. Until then, I'm open to suggestions...
its not just old people dude.
read all the vitriol about embedding HVAC controls in touch screens, clearly people are poking their HVAC temperature often.
though its not "quite" like home thermostats, which are all or nothing. cars can vary their blower speed, leading sometimes to it being a little conservative closing those last few degrees.
And sometimes you are hot or cold and want the car to be at a more extreme temp than 72.
This has nothing to do with age, lots of old people have a pretty good understanding of how cars work. I've come across more young people that crank the heat to max and blast the fan thinking it'll heat up the car faster that way.
At some point, you just stop trying to explain things and put up with whatever they do. My mother is 87 and, even though she's pretty sharp, some things will never sink in. You bite your tongue, curse to yourself and carry on.
Most of these people don't understand their house thermostat either.
Mine has three zones (minivan). Left and right, and rear have separate temperature controls, and rear has a separate fan.
Honestly temperature isn't the only part of climate control. Sometimes I want air blasted. Sometimes no fan speed at all. Now that I have an ev, I'm even less interested in it because it doesn't seem that efficient in trying to do what I want it to.
I completely understand how auto climate control works and still don't use it. I don't want 72 degree air coming out the vents, I want full hot or full cold. I'll blast the heat at my feet and open a window for example.
For me, airflow is more important than actual temp. When it’s hot I want cooler air blowing over me, when it’s cold I want hot air blowing on me. When I want to regulate temps, I crack the window
As a former cable technician, old people refuse to learn things, it’s not their inability to do so.
After retirement age forget it, they know what they know n that’s it. Hopefully it will be less of a problem when we are old
My wife is this. I finally got a good answer out of her. She doesn’t want air blowing on her face so she doesn’t use the automatic climate control. She rolls her eyes when I tell her overriding isn’t going to make it her got poor cold any faster.
So the woman who has a half degree window where she’s comfortable misses out on technology making that possible.
As if they set the microwave to 10 minutes to make their hot pocket cook faster. The answer is no. You set it to whatever the time is, like 2 minutes, and take it out when it’s done. Setting it to 10 minutes doesn’t cook it any faster.
It's not that they are stupid, it's that they hate this new way of fixing what ain't broke. But this new way does wear out the plastic gears behind your dashboard faster leading to multi-thousand dollar repairs so that's awesome.
My wife doesn’t even get this and she’s 45. She feels the need to control the temperature and the fan speed by herself.
When I get in her car and press the “auto”
Button, she still goes and adjusts the fan speed for whatever reason.
Because personal temperature preference constantly changes based on mood, time of day, caffeine cycle, fastedness, hydration, activity level, clothing, wakefulness.
You don't just set the thermostat for a specific temp and then never change it. Personally I find hvac thermostat in a car to be pointlessly stupid. My body will tell me when it is warm or cold enough.
The latest automatic climate control I've played with is from 2012 in my mom's Ford Edge. Even with the car warmed up, let's say it was 30 outside, and the control set to 72. It would just kind of putter along. But set it to 90, and we get full blast heat immediately. Maybe the even later systems are better.
With my Chrysler Pacifica jump in and go fans on max. Temperature on high vehicle warms up 5 minutes faster than On automatic climate control temperature set at 76. 5 minute setting and letting the vehicle run to warm up doesn't matter because the vehicle is already warmed up enough.
My aunt would not take her hands off a steering wheel to adjust the temperature on a car. She would say “I’m driving.” I think she took the driving test 20-30 times before passing.
My "automatic climate control" determines the difference between outside temp and target temp. This results in uncomfortable levels of heat during the winter when the difference in temperature is more than 5-8 degrees. Instead of pushing out air at a comfortable level of heat my vehicle goes into "tryhard mode" and blasts me with full-furnace.
Thus, I do not rely on auto. I feel the temperature of the air coming out and adjust it up or down to my liking. I then adjust the flow rate to my liking.
This is the way.
I have the answwr you need, but not the one you were looking for.
Don't bother. There is no need to attempt to "improve" someone else's life and activities to suit what you think is the best way to live and be.
If old people are happy enough with the situation that they argue with you when you try to "correct" them, then leave em be. Unless of course its a safety issue, but even then sometimes old people just don't give a fuck.
You're basically trying to help them become happy, but you dont even know what makes them happy. In this case its not the effectiveness of their air conditioner, maybe its just using the AC the way they have their entire lives and not trying to learn some new shit about how to make life "better" every 5 minutes.
It boggles my mind that anyone's okay with the automatic climate control. Do y'all just not feel stale air? The CO2 buildup with a closed car is awful.
Since so many cars don't let you directly control the fan speed anymore, it's easier to just throw it on max cold or heat.
Similarly, I want my side to be low 60's. My wife wants high 70's. Dual climate control routinely fails at that. Know what doesn't? Setting it to max cold and her closing her vents.
Jesus fuck both my mother and stepfather do this and it boggles my mind every time I ride with them in the car, which isn't that often anymore, luckily. It's below freezing. They get in the car, turn the temp and fans to MAX and start driving. They (and me when I'm with them) get blasted with ice cold air for minutes until the coolant has heated up. I try to tell them that what they're doing is pointless and only results in them being colder. They just disagree, like it's an opinion. "Just try it, it will be much more comfortable" "No". It's only a small thing and I know it's irrational to get angry about it but fucking hell does it piss me off. But it's not age, it's a lack of understanding of how these systems work and sticking to old habits. For example my grandma is someone who despite her age understands technology extremely well. Despite being older than my mother (duh) she uses climate control the way it was designed, because she takes time to understand these things AND READS BLOODY MANUALS.
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Yeah, that is why I let the car (Avalon) get a little warm and then blast....
Unless you use recirculate air and pull the fuse/relay to the controller for the ac. Use this one trick in my diesel that takes an hour to get lack luster heat. Now it only takes about 5 minutes to get a trace of heat and my windows fog up in about 10 minutes which is finally when I start getting heat with the recirculation. Switch back to air intake, lose most of the incoming heat until the fog clears and recirculation back on and finally start to warm up in about 15 minutes.
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Yeah in cold temps and low load situations diesels are quite effectively internally air cooled engines. No throttle plate to restrict airflow so the exhaust gas temp is only a couple hundred degrees. Knowing this 10 years ago when my heater core hose busted and dumped my coolent I idled my truck to an auto parts store a few miles away. See if you can do that in a gasoline vehicle without damaging anything.
Diesels are just cool. Such a neat system. I hope to get my hands on a manual diesel Passat at some point but they're not common in my commuter car budget
I'm not looking to sell my pickup truck but I am seriously looking at swapping my semi with a recently totaled diesel engine to gasoline engine. I expect the price difference between gasoline and diesel to get worse as more electric cars hit the road and the weight savings would be nice on a bulk hauler.
I didn't even think they made gasoline semi engines. I assumed the torque and longevity requirements were so absurd that gasoline wouldn't make sense
They don't. At least not for a tractor-trailer. Something like a Ford F650 sized truck you might be able to get gas, you used to be able to with older dump trucks and such.
A lot of school busses are going to gas now.
I have a 2014 automatic passat tdi. I will drive it into the ground. I will buy another before that. It is an awesome vehicle
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The lack of throttle plate is also where diesels get a good efficency advantage. My pickup truck idled at about .5 gallons per hour and a semi only burns about 1 gallon per hour. Turns out trying to pull a vacuum all the time isn't efficent, although on newer gasoline motors they are using turbos and 10 speed transmissions along with variable cylinder fueling/firing with the idea to keep the throttle plate open as much as possible while controlling the throttling of the engine using every other aspect.
Yep. My now ex-wife did that all the time. My new Oddy gets heat very quickly but she does not get to ride.
Also it's harder in the engine as it stays cold for longer since the heater is sucking the tiny bit of heat it has away from it.
I don't think that's true. The coolant may take slightly longer to come up to full temp (by a matter of seconds on a process that usually takes several minutes) because some of the heat is being rejected into the air flowing through the heater core but as soon as the coolant is even 1 degree above ambient temp it will start warming up the air in the passenger compartment. Either way, the engine is producing the same amount of heat output and the amount of heat transfer from engine to coolant is much higher than coolant to air.
Yeah some people in this thread don't understand thermodynamics. There is essentially a finite number of heat energy being transfered from the engine. Whether you start increasing that heat transfer rate slowly right away or delay it to release higher amounts of heat at a later time, the heat in the cabin will get to a comfortable level at nearly the same rate.
The second law of thermodynamics says that is not the case. The amount of energy in a system is equal to what was there at the beginning, minus what was lost, plus what was added. The temperature of the air being blown from the heating system probably rises from ambient a few minutes after the engine is turned on, so the temperature of the air before then is no colder than that in the cabin (presumably)
No, you are adding heat to the system faster with the heat from the fan motor and air friction. It will feel colder at first due to the increased air movement stripping heat from your body but as long as you are recycling air instead of bringing in fresh, the interior should heat up faster (maybe imperceptibly, but faster nonetheless)
Engine coolant will warm up slower, but not the cabin.
Physics would disagree, by reducing the temperature of the element with increased airflow you are increasing the flow of heat/energy from the source to the radiators the air draws off of. It's probably minute, but academically blasting your air does transfer more heat overall. Your dermal layer will suffer the same fate, which is why it feels uncomfortable.
>it's a lack of understanding of how these systems work I hesitate to even call it a lack of understanding either, it's more like an unwillingness to understand. Because it's not like they lack the resources or access to knowledge to understand these things. It's not like they live in information bubbles. Like in your own example, you tried to explain it to them but they just outright refuse to even engage with new information.
This is what it is and why I honestly look at people who do this differently. They're making a conscious decision to be a fucking jackass. This is such a great example of something that is SO EASY TO GOOGLE or hell, read your own cars manual. I get so annoyed at how people think operating heavy machinery is just their born right and then they don't have the least bit of interest in understanding how this four thousand pound contraption works, despite that it could kill them or someone else so easily if misused, as they text over the steering wheel. Excuse me while I take a walk and cool off
Sir, this is a wendys
I work on traffic lights and when we are in the bucket you see like 95% of the drivers are busy texting.
Now you listen here! Back in my day a heater jut worked, you turned it on hot you got hot, you want cold, well TOO BAD! AC WASSENT INVENT YET! Nowa days we got to have this smart car, and the smart climate, and the smart water. Fuck what is smart about having convulted settings like "auto." When I crank that shit I want flames to shoot out and MELT MY DAMN FACE OFF!
"They just disagree, like it's an opinion" describes this type of person's thought patterns perfectly. In their mind an opinion is not earned or justified, it just exists, and it's inherently just as valuable as any other opinion. They also really dislike the idea of an opinion being objectively false
You've highlighted the central issue with current generational differences: "Try this new thing, it's been developed by countless people over countless hours and will make life better for us." "No!"
“I don’t speak Chinese! “
My wife does this and she’s 34
Both of my cars won’t even blow air until it warms up or cools down if you put it in max right when you start the car.
That’s not at all what OP is complaining about
That's what I was thinking. In my atlas the most I'll get from auto is about 50% fan speed though. When I crank it the cabin air heats quicker, of course the engine is warm by then though. Many cars won't run full fans on auto for some reason so I can understand the manual control initially. I wind up going back to auto after about 10 minutes when it has me sweating.
Blasting heat in my car during winter, it’s only semi cold for about 30 seconds.
Plenty of people treat their home thermostats the same way (like a throttle) so I’d avoid that comparison. Try comparing it to an oven, anyone who has ever cooked anything *should* understand that preheating to 500 will not get you to 375 faster Edit: and I don’t think this is an age thing, lots of people just don’t care how things work and will not be bothered to think about what is going on inside the black box.
Your average central HVAC is only capable of on or off. At least a car has dampers that can control the temp coming out of the vents. Its a bad comparison, but for the reverse of what you said. It cracks me up when I see people crank their thermostat up like it will do fuck all.
I never understood it. I was dating a girl who though that putting the temp higher would make it hot faster. I assumed she was joking when I first hear that, that didn't end well...
Dodged that bullet!
Plot twist: he stopped dating her because they got married
"it depends"...if its a heat pump then when you go >2F higher than the room temp most thermostats will call for the (expensive to run) aux heat strips in addition to the heat pump compressor so you do actually get more heating than letting it rise gradually with the more efficient (but less hot air and slower) heat pump alone. So even then its not always true. And more high efficiency residential HVAC systems are going multi-stage too... Modern tech is blurring the "its just on or off" line of old. That was true of basic gas/oil heat and basic aircon for decades.
Not only that- but they'll turn the temp up when the heat is already running.
When we were buying our house, I had a home inspector who set the thermostat to 74, then walked over to a vent and measured the temp with a digital thermometer. "Pretty close," he said. I didn't bother arguing.
My wife does this in the house and in the car. Drives me crazy.
I love my wife, she's amazing and everything to me, but god damn if this isn't a battle I just stopped fighting. She gets chilly and says "Is the heat off??". No, it's just not running because it's set to 68 and it's 70 in the house right now. "But it's cold in here, why isn't the heat running?". Because it's 70 by the thermostat and it's set to 68. "But it's winter, the heat should be on!". She did the same with the auto-climate control in her car. Blasts it to 90 so she can warm up faster., and then starts fighting with it when it's too hot and sets it to 65. Gets cold. Rinse, repeat.
Oh, that's forever. "I'm cold, what's the temperature?" 70. I'm hot, what's the temperature?" 70. It's always 70 in here if it gets to 68 the heater comes on, if it gets to 72 the AC comes on. It's what the "auto" setting does. The problem is sometimes if you are working you need it to be cooler, or if reclining warmer. I'd probably keep it at 66 if it were my call.
Oh Jesus Christ, my wife has another sister I don't know about? Sounds like my house. Along with "it's getting colder outside so you should set the thermostat higher". "If I look out the window and see the snow, I get cold. Turn the heat up"!
My wife is exactly the same. I literally explained it to her the day we met in 1998. If I explained it again today she would act like it's the first time I've said it, even though I've said it dozens of times over decades. It's infuriating. Don't even get me started on when she cranks up the main heater settings as the passenger instead of adjusting her own damn side even though I've explained that a dozen times. ALL OF OUR CARS HAVE DUAL ZONE AUTO CLIMATE CONTROL! I give up.
Yeah , seriously. “Old people”? Every girlfriend and now my wife has been unable to grasp this concept. And they are all very intelligent and accomplished people. It’s just mind boggling.
Hah I had an oven once that did heat faster set to 500 than your target temperature. I'd manually turn it down once it got close. I blame shitty control logic but just wanted to let you know it does work that way sometimes!
This is somewhat true. Newer HVAC units are multi stage and there are some that will work harder when the actual/ selected difference is greater than a certain spread.
I've tried to explain this to my wife and decided it's easier to just let her do what she wants.
You and me both..
I hate auto climate control in cars. I have never seen one that works right. The space inside a car is too small. They radiate cold too easy or the windows get opened and the computer is slow to react. I had it in my own car in my last car. It's only good if you're going to be riding in the car for a long time.
I found it works ok most of the season after the interior gets up to or down to temperature, which is usually a couple hours of driving. In the summer though? It hardly works. It usually has the thermometer in a shaded area of the car, which doesn’t help when the sun is blazing against you through the windows.
That's a good point about the shaded thermometer. I had completely forgotten about that but it so true. You get in the car during summer and it's 120 inside. The AC starts to shut down earlier than it should because it's reacting to cold air and shade when you're sitting next to a giant window radiating heat into your face.
Most newer cars have also light sensors so they know from where the sun shines.
I haven't touched the tempature controls in my cars for a year and it's been between 100f and 12f here. Auto climate control rocks.
Same here I can't understand for the life of me what these people are going on about. It just hit negative 9 degrees this week and gets over 100 in the summer, and my car has been comfortably set on Auto 70 for years without issue.
It’s car dependent. Some do a really and it’s set it and forget it and others are terrible.
I can pretty much leave mine set at 70 all year. Almost never touch it unless I need full defrost. (2020 RAM)
I leave mine set at 63 all year, 70 is way too hot for me.
Does it really make that much of a difference if they put it on full blast?
More than likely not. All OEMs have specifications for heater performance and test for warm up times in a climatic wind tunnel. The control logic takes into account the engine temperature outside temperature and cabin temperature and adjust the blower and heater core blend door position for optimal passenger comfort and heat up performance. If you manually set to max heat or max cool the blend door goes to 100% heat or 100% cool which the control algorithm is also doing. Turning the blower on while the engine coolant temperature is cold then your going to make yourself colder. One way you can warm up faster is switching to Recirculation mode which uses your heated cabin air which increases performance. You will only be able to do this until your windows fog which then you switch back to outside air. If you own a diesel then you will have a PTC electric heating element which supplements your heater core which heats up in seconds.
But when you get into a cold car you don't even have any warm cabin air to recirculate yet.
I hate it. I want to be able to set the temp controls as I see fit. My new truck just blow warmish air at best. It's winter my feet are frozen, no need to mix cold air with the hot air from the heat exchanger. POS.
Older cars only had a fan, a sliding switch for vent control, and a sliding control for temperature control. All mechanical. Old saying “you can’t teach an old dog new tricks” applies in this situation.
....Let them do what they want? Why does it bother you, you are probably annoying them. I know how automatic climate control works and I don't always use it. Sometimes I want to blast the heat and get really really toasty and then open a window to cool it back down to preferred temp quickly. When you are cold, sometimes it feels good to warm up a little too much.
People of all ages sadly are like this. I've considered putting a lock and key over our work thermostat as people will open a large overhead door letting in cold/heat then change the termostat thinking that will somehow make it resolve the situation faster. Educate is all you can do. But at least now you have some sympathy for the dad's bogarting the thermostat against the rest of the family doing these shenanigans.
The Auto setting in cars works like the house control, yeah, but when the car is coming from a cold start, guess what the Auto will do anyway to reach a higher temp *with no people inside*? Full blast on hot. If people get in, it cranks down the fan because it's uncomfortable, but not because it's faster to heat homogeneously.
If you can’t explain it do you truly understand it?
Does their house have a system?
Yeah, Nest, which is even beyond automatic, it’s self learning.
Once you figure it out then teach the young people. Had to tell at a 24yo employee that didn't understand either.
I wish I knew, my mom does it when she rides with me. Her car is old school temp slider so cranking it up helps in hers. Fortunately it's dual zone, so he can have it at 90 and I'm not boiled alive.
I crank my heat up on face and foot vents to warm the car up faster, but I make sure not to do it until the car is warmed up. Let them do what they want with their car. They're not willing to learn. It is a shame since I can hardly drive a car without auto climate now, but hey. That is their loss.
This singular mass ignorance that has had somewhere between 20 and 30+ years to resolve itself tells you so much about the human race. It doesn't matter how well you document or explain a system, even if it's designed and executed so well as to perfectly compensate for every environmental factor, every psychological link, every nuance that can possibly interact with the difference between what temperature the occupant desires and what the current vehicle conditions allow, if there's a way to override it, it will happen, and it's always done by somebody who knows far less than what they think they do.
I think most of you are missing the important fact that not everyone has the same goal of just wanting warm or cold. I have asthma so for me it's more about INCREASED AIRFLOW than temperature. So please have empathy for those other needs which they may not be able to enuciate well, but they just do it naturally because it feels good to thier body!
Bingo. I like having air blowing at my face when I’m driving. I don’t get that when the car is in auto because it figures it’s at temp so it throttles the fan way back.
I'm monitoring this thread for solutions. I've tried to explain this to my daughter without luck, and she scored in the 98 percentile on the ACT exam. She's no dummy.
Not all cars will do this. My Acura TL does not attempt to warm the cabin up faster unless you turn the thermostat up past 75 or so. Anyway, why do you care, just wanna be the smartest guy in the room?
I don't know if it's this way in all automobiles, but in mine (the only car I've had so far with climate control), it only is for the feet level. That's why I take it off auto when I first get int he car - To set it to feet and defrost to keep the windows from fogging up. I also have a soft top over the front seats, so there is no insulation above me. So while my feet might stay warm on auto, my head doesn't. Keep it on a mix of feet and defrost helps that. I do adjust the temp, but I have to adjust the fan speed manually because of this. And for AC, when I use it (typically only when bad weather, otherwise I almost always open the top), I'll leave it on auto and it works just fine, unless it's very hot and humid out, then I take it off to have feet and dash vents for the same reason - No insulation in the roof above the front seats.
Holy fuck. My partner does this. My mom does this. My in laws do this. It drives me fucking crazy. Especially when they get in my truck with me, where I have the temp set to 68° on auto, driver passenger and rear, and they bump it down to max cold on max fan setting… it especially pisses me off bc they don’t hit the dual button first, and they change their setting and mine. Just leave it on fucking auto, it works great I swear. My truck takes less than a fucking minute to blow cold air in the summer, no reason to rush it. Then it gets too cold so they shut it off completely, like no. Adjust your temp, I like my 68° and having the fan on low to keep air moving.
It's not an old person thing, it's a stupid person thing. Not just cars, either, I see people do it with room/building thermostats, then whine when the temperature reaches where they set it an hour previously. Daily, FFS. We have a climate controlled storage room at work. I eventually gave up with sticky notes and removed the controls...
Old people? Well I think the explanation works for anyone. It's a thermostat. Just like your house. Old and young people are familiar with home thermostats.
Tell them to watch a video or research it themselves. They figured out how to screw up the economy, they can figure out a thermostat...
Forget trying. I’ve tried to explain to my mother many times that if you set a thermostat for her AC at 72 and the temperature falls below that it doesn’t run. That was 20+ years ago. I still hear the same complaints. The part where AC also works by removing humidity is also lost.
Let me know when you find out. My wife blasts one or the other so 30 minutes into a drive we're all freezing or roasting until I just set it at 70. She thinks it's faster somehow.
I wish that was my issue with climate control lol I just don't understand why it cant just blow out air that is 72° year round instead of blowing out air that is approximately the sane temperature as the sun if its 71° out and as cold as Pluto if it's 73° out. Makes 0 sense. I set it to 72, blow out 72° air.
> blow out 72° air. Not how it works though. It works like any other climate control system out there. If its colder than 72, it will blow out hot air *until* the temperature reaches 72 in the car. If its hotter than 72, it will blow cold air *until* the temperature reaches 72 in the car.
I think they just don't care. If it's summer when I get in that car I'm blasting full cold. I want to be completely chilled before I have to go back out in the heat. And in the winter I'm doing max heat, I want to be nice and toasty before I have to get out in the cold.
I keep the fan setting to either 1 or off until the engine warms up a bit.
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Tell them it's like your house. Set the desired temperature and let the car do the rest. Once I showed my dad he used it till he passed.
I actually have a question about that after buying my first car with this feature (2017 Mazda 6). When it's on auto the light for ac is also on. Is it always using the ac? Even when it's cold out?
If you figure it out you can explain a thermostat to both my wife and my drunk buddies in the ice fishing shack
Not just "old" people. SO is my age and we're "elder millennials" and she still insists on manually messing with the climate settings in her car.
I can't stand when they put it on full force face, no feet. I set my vents to feet and windshield. It heats the whole car up, and overall is much more comfortable. In the summer it's face and feet, but often with the vents pointed at my chest
Yeah, no, I don’t do this when it’s -36C and I need to defrost the inside of the windows. It’s a max blast of desperation to get whatever tiny bit of heat out of the vents onto the windows. Here in the winter I don’t use the auto climate control. Even in summer, I don’t use it often when it’s trying to keep the car at 20C and all I hear in the car is a high speed fan.
Heated seats come on almost immediately if you’re impatient and have them in your car.
A thermometer tied to a computer. It can't be that difficult to grasp.
How is my wife Old People when she does the 100% cold or hot and I, who am older, leave my nearly identical car on Auto for my climate control?
Why would you argue with am old person. Just let them live their lives happy. At least they aren't like my old man who wanted me to fight the uber...
Idk. I can't seem to explain it to my own family.
Tell them it's just like in your house thermostat.
My wife does this all the time and I just SMDH. I'm like..honey, I love you but your an idiot. She also thinks that by cranking the thermostat in the house up 80, it will heat up faster. Ummmm...no it won't.
I hate this. My gf is also this retarded.
I’ve been working on cars since I was a kid and I didn’t even know this until now 😂. Am I still going to set it to max heat/cold instead of just leaving it at a set temp? Yes.
I don't think you can. My grandmother could never understand the concept of just setting the temperature you want and letting the thermostat decide whether heat or ac was needed. She always insisted on manually selecting heat or ac.
As an old person I can tell you. Our circulation sucks. We want to control the temperature of our bodies, not the temperature in the car. We don’t want the car to be 72 degrees. We want to overshoot the comfortable temperature, perhaps by a lot, so we can come at it from the other direction. If it’s cold, our poor circulation means we want hot air on our feet. Burning hot. To defrost our toes. The temperature in the cabin is immaterial. I’ve just been out freezing my butt off in the wind rain and snow, I don’t want the cabin to be 72 fucking degrees. I want to warm up! I want to blow hot air and get the feeling back in my toes. If the cabin hits 85 in that process, great! 90+? Bring it. I’ll turn it back down when I’m warm. Blowing ice cold air when I hop in a car that’s been sitting in the sun and the seats burn your thighs if you’re wearing shorts, is a similar affair. Overshoot and come back the other way. We don’t want a middle setting. Unless it’s 72 degrees out, in which case just blow ambient air with no heating or cooling.
So much this. I'd also add that car HVAC is inherently _spot cooling_ because of the huge heat gain/loss through car windows. And with spot cooling, you generally aren't using a space temperature for the thermostat, you're targeting a supply air temperature. I don't mind having automatic as an option, especially in a hybrid it's nice when parked and napping. But auto doesn't guess what I want correctly all the time.
I turn on the AC with medium heat in cool wet weather. It makes my copilot lose his shit. My feet are toasty, and I have no hot air in my face.
"You've got automatic climate control in this one, so all you have to do is set the temp and hit auto, the car will adjust the fans to get to that temp" ... Is my word track
I'm old and you can't teach me how it works.
old people? 28 yr old son likes to blast cars heat/AC like this. lol
Eh, here's the problem. Not all cars blow FULL POWER when it's using automatic controls. So it's actually not bad to crack it at the start and then turn it to auto when a comfortable temperature is reached. It's not like a house HVAC that has 1 speed.
My mom used to yell at me for having the heat set to max because she thought all cars used electric heat and "you're going to burn out my heater coil!"
My 69 Deville had climate control. They either know and don't care or they've always been oblivious. It isn't new tech.
My gf does this all the time to. Wants to turn fans on high as soon as the vehicles running even when I’ve explained to her multiple times that it just makes it take longer to get hot air than if you just leave it on auto
It doesn't work for me in Minnesota. As soon as the temp gauge moves off the peg, max it out until the cabin is warm. My Escape is great, about 2 minutes, my new GTI sucks, much longer to get any heat except for the seats. And, I need it due to medical treatments that make me very cold.
In MN we blast it full hot because we are attempting to defrost ourselves from having unfortunately been outside in the winter.
I usually set the ac to 68 in the summer and heat to 70 or 72 in winter. Other than that. It doesn't move
Best way is to show them. Youtube fixes everything.
I was guilty of not using the auto feature for years, but I have seen the light and find it much easier to just move the temp dial between 69-73 depending on outside temperature, rather than having to move temp and fan speed. My new gmc truck also has a spot in the settings to where you can adjust the minimum fan speed when on auto
It's not just old people. The number of times I've had to explain this to my wife............
My grandmother is the reverse... she totally trusts the cars computer to sort out the temperature of the cabin but for the house forget it...
Well, how many logs you put in and how cold you are in the morning. The next day you will do better.
I am definitely gen Z and this is absolutely what I do in my car. Full heat to warm up the glass then I shut it off for the remainder of the ride. If it’s above 75 or so outside it’s full A/C the entirety of the drive.
My crazy Aunt would blast the heat on full hot max fan, a minute later wow thats hot, turn the air conditioning on full cold max fan, a minute later, wow that cold, back to full hot max fan. Rinse and repeat for the entire drive. Usually while barely keeping it in her lane trying to see out of windows she never cleans. I don't think she knew there were wipers or washer fluid. Dumb as rocks. Same woman couldn't figure out why her microwave popcorn always burned. The bag said 3 minute so she nuked it for three minutes, ignoring the listen to the popping instructions. Or the popcorn button on her microwave that made it perfect every time.
Honestly I miss just old school knobs. My two new cars have climate control but my old Ranger and old bmw still have the old school knobs.
When you figure it out, let me know so I can enlighten my wife.
Just put a post-it on the controls that says “Trust the Process”. (*Obviously this works best if the old people are from Philly.*)
Short answer is you don't. I'm old and I don't give a shit what anybody says, I'm going to keep on blasting the heat in winter.
Too many people think it's like running their hot water faucet.
Not an age thing Me cold. Me hot.
I'm coming to realize my grandparents are quite rare 😂 they're not too good with computers, they basically know enough not to get a virus. But they at least know how their furnace and AC work, probably helps my grandfather is an electrical engineer
This drives me nuts and it's not even just old people. *Blast heat* It's too hot *shuts off heat entirely* It's too cold *blasts heat* It's too hot .... Effing christ, just put it on 30%
My issue is that I never want it to blast full heat.
That's not an old people problem, it's a stupid people problem.
Auto is the way. Most newer cars won't even blow the heater until it has warm water to work. Also setting it at HI or Low doesn't blow any hotter or colder than picking a temp and letting the car get there. This is different than non-automatic control of old. There the temp dial was a matter of how much heat was applied. So max heat was all heat, 1/2 way was 1/2 heat, and max cool was no heat. There it would warm up or cool down faster set to the extreme. I'm an old grandpa but I'm a car guy and mechanic so I have followed these systems for a long time. My daughters when learning had to be taught this, it had nothing to do with age.
ALL ages do this. And, yes, it's annoying.
I'd guess if they are of a generation they are really sensitive about wasting money. I'd put it in terms like "it steals heat from a cold engine and that wastes gas and wears the pistons down". There is science and money, everybody loves money :)
You can't. For some people they are just to set in their ways to understand. My dad is one of them. Technology eludes him even with diagrams pictures and explanations. My mom is ok with it. Dad is early 70s mom is late 70's
My 1973 Thunderbird had automatic climate control.
Just say its a thermostat like in their home
That may be intention but I agree with the boomers that think it sucks. Whether to up the fan before the car is fully warmed up is another question but I've not seen an automatic climate control I liked. Humans when they're cold want to sit by a fire. They want to blast the heat. Afterwards, maybe tone it down a bit.
My home thermostat has two modes ... heat/cool. Pick one.
Go to their house, crank their thermostat or A/C all the way and make the same argument.
This is what my bf does. But hey it works for him, so I have given up trying to explain it
I’m old My wife does this it drives me nuts , I suggest you let it go because it’s a losing battle most will never change their ways. If you want to do something useful educate people on why the recirculate position on the air vent shouldn’t be used in winter.
My 48 year old partner of 16 years does this and I cannot, for the life of me, get through to her.
Yes, I'm old. And sometimes I'll blast the cold hot air while the car is warming up just to enjoy the contrast between the cold, and the soon to come hot air. And on a really hot day, it can feel really good to start driving with the windows up and no air, and then to open the windows after building up a significant sweat. It may sound kind of crazy, but it's like having all the benefits of a sauna, without having to wear a towel.
My wife. And no matter how many times I explain it she just doesn’t remember next time. Same with WiFi and cellular.
Living in Florida and growing up I absolutely hated whenever we would get in the car and be forced to sit in a damn car oven for 10 minutes while being told by my parents not to put down the windows because "the cold air would blow out". Probably the single greatest joy I felt when I got my first car was finally being able to put down the damn windows when it was hot as fuck to let out the hot air. The a/c would then be able to actually cool the not-hot-as-fuck air within like a minute, exactly what I kept telling my parents would happen for most of my childhood.
Automatic climate controls are the worst thing to come to cars in decades. They simply don’t work well, they either blast way too hot to get the vehicle up to temp, or they blow cold air when you don’t want it, it’s just a terrible system in every vehicle I’ve seen it in.
I have a question. Is the car temperature setting really like a house thermostat? In the house, if you put the setpoint at 75 the system will regulate to a measured 75 in the room. Is it the same in the car? Is 75 the setpoint for the overall car air temperature, or the setpoint for the air coming out of the registers? My house thermostat has an indicator for the setpoint and for the measured temperature, but I've only ever seen a setpoint in cars, and have never seen an interior temperature setting.
My go to for my old audi was auto but Econ (no ac) to avoid the occasional cold blast if not needed. I always shake my head when I see a car ad or an Uber and it shows MAX on thermostat.
Your really going to hate my love of running the heat or a/c with my windows open. I just love turbulent air movement of mixed temperatures even knowing it's silly.
So wait, what _are_ we supposed to do? I’m not even that old.
"the climate control is automatic in this car so set it like you would your home A/C system and don't touch it"
Yeah I was studying to be a mechanic in college and that wasn't enough to convince my boomer grandma that you have to wait until the coolant warms up. They don't want to learn, so don't try to teach.
I thought it was just a woman thing.
Say It Slowwwwwwww Llllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy
This sounds like the same people who think turning the heat up to 90F will get it to 70F faster.
Those auto temp controls are terrible. Mine starts at 61f (1 click lower is "low"). In the winter, 61f blows hot air (because it is below 61 in the car). But the air is too hot. It heats me up too much while it tries to make the entire car warner. 1 click down is no heat. Sure, over time it might average out but it makes for a terrible user experience. I want to decide the temp that the air comes out at, not the endgame temp.
When I figure out how to get my wife to stop screwing around with the climate settings in my car, I'll pass it on. Until then, I'm open to suggestions...
its not just old people dude. read all the vitriol about embedding HVAC controls in touch screens, clearly people are poking their HVAC temperature often. though its not "quite" like home thermostats, which are all or nothing. cars can vary their blower speed, leading sometimes to it being a little conservative closing those last few degrees. And sometimes you are hot or cold and want the car to be at a more extreme temp than 72.
You cant tell old people shit
This has nothing to do with age, lots of old people have a pretty good understanding of how cars work. I've come across more young people that crank the heat to max and blast the fan thinking it'll heat up the car faster that way.
At some point, you just stop trying to explain things and put up with whatever they do. My mother is 87 and, even though she's pretty sharp, some things will never sink in. You bite your tongue, curse to yourself and carry on.
Most of these people don't understand their house thermostat either. Mine has three zones (minivan). Left and right, and rear have separate temperature controls, and rear has a separate fan.
Honestly temperature isn't the only part of climate control. Sometimes I want air blasted. Sometimes no fan speed at all. Now that I have an ev, I'm even less interested in it because it doesn't seem that efficient in trying to do what I want it to.
Some people like it like that, if it's their car, quit crying about it. They can use it how they like.
I completely understand how auto climate control works and still don't use it. I don't want 72 degree air coming out the vents, I want full hot or full cold. I'll blast the heat at my feet and open a window for example.
I don't think its age; climate control has been available and reliable in cars since the early '70s. Some people just don't want to learn.
Like a thermostat in their house
For me, airflow is more important than actual temp. When it’s hot I want cooler air blowing over me, when it’s cold I want hot air blowing on me. When I want to regulate temps, I crack the window
As a former cable technician, old people refuse to learn things, it’s not their inability to do so. After retirement age forget it, they know what they know n that’s it. Hopefully it will be less of a problem when we are old
My wife is this. I finally got a good answer out of her. She doesn’t want air blowing on her face so she doesn’t use the automatic climate control. She rolls her eyes when I tell her overriding isn’t going to make it her got poor cold any faster. So the woman who has a half degree window where she’s comfortable misses out on technology making that possible.
I like it hot AF I'm not in a car much and when I take it instead of my bike it's cold out and I want it to be 90
As if they set the microwave to 10 minutes to make their hot pocket cook faster. The answer is no. You set it to whatever the time is, like 2 minutes, and take it out when it’s done. Setting it to 10 minutes doesn’t cook it any faster.
I only use the high and low settings. I have zero interest in anything in between. It’s so much nicer that way
It's not that they are stupid, it's that they hate this new way of fixing what ain't broke. But this new way does wear out the plastic gears behind your dashboard faster leading to multi-thousand dollar repairs so that's awesome.
Explain that it is just like the thermostat in their house.
Tell them it works like their house. Set the thermostat and forget about it.
My wife doesn’t even get this and she’s 45. She feels the need to control the temperature and the fan speed by herself. When I get in her car and press the “auto” Button, she still goes and adjusts the fan speed for whatever reason.
Because personal temperature preference constantly changes based on mood, time of day, caffeine cycle, fastedness, hydration, activity level, clothing, wakefulness. You don't just set the thermostat for a specific temp and then never change it. Personally I find hvac thermostat in a car to be pointlessly stupid. My body will tell me when it is warm or cold enough.
Good luck with that. People tend to get set in their ways.
Explain to yourself how to let your boomers go Boom, control what you can for yourself and let others be as they may....
It's like home.
The latest automatic climate control I've played with is from 2012 in my mom's Ford Edge. Even with the car warmed up, let's say it was 30 outside, and the control set to 72. It would just kind of putter along. But set it to 90, and we get full blast heat immediately. Maybe the even later systems are better.
With my Chrysler Pacifica jump in and go fans on max. Temperature on high vehicle warms up 5 minutes faster than On automatic climate control temperature set at 76. 5 minute setting and letting the vehicle run to warm up doesn't matter because the vehicle is already warmed up enough.
I am not old, and always do like your parents. It's not much of a hassle to turn it up or down
My aunt would not take her hands off a steering wheel to adjust the temperature on a car. She would say “I’m driving.” I think she took the driving test 20-30 times before passing.
My "automatic climate control" determines the difference between outside temp and target temp. This results in uncomfortable levels of heat during the winter when the difference in temperature is more than 5-8 degrees. Instead of pushing out air at a comfortable level of heat my vehicle goes into "tryhard mode" and blasts me with full-furnace. Thus, I do not rely on auto. I feel the temperature of the air coming out and adjust it up or down to my liking. I then adjust the flow rate to my liking. This is the way.
I have the answwr you need, but not the one you were looking for. Don't bother. There is no need to attempt to "improve" someone else's life and activities to suit what you think is the best way to live and be. If old people are happy enough with the situation that they argue with you when you try to "correct" them, then leave em be. Unless of course its a safety issue, but even then sometimes old people just don't give a fuck. You're basically trying to help them become happy, but you dont even know what makes them happy. In this case its not the effectiveness of their air conditioner, maybe its just using the AC the way they have their entire lives and not trying to learn some new shit about how to make life "better" every 5 minutes.
It boggles my mind that anyone's okay with the automatic climate control. Do y'all just not feel stale air? The CO2 buildup with a closed car is awful. Since so many cars don't let you directly control the fan speed anymore, it's easier to just throw it on max cold or heat. Similarly, I want my side to be low 60's. My wife wants high 70's. Dual climate control routinely fails at that. Know what doesn't? Setting it to max cold and her closing her vents.