fdiphill

Hello,

I'm a new Lexus owner (2018 ES) and I have no idea how to shut off the A\C and have fresh air only coming through the vents, any help is greatly appreciated.


Thanks,
fdiphill
Boston MA

Kijug

The intent is to leave the A/C on Auto all the time. Just adjust the temperature. That said, if you want to turn off the compressor (aka "A/C") then you have to use the menus. Go into the "Climate" menu...and you'll see from there.

fdiphill

Great thank you for your quick response.

NdYAG

The physical recirculation button controls the AC as well. It would cycle between three states "AC OFF + outside air" -> "AC OFF + recirculation" -> "AC ON + outside/recirculation on AUTO". I am not sure if this a default behavior - possibly needs a change in some settings to work like this.

lesz

With the default settings, the only way to turn off the AC compressor and just have air blowing through the vents is, as others have said, to go into the Climate screen and turn off the AC. It should also be noted that, when the outside temp is at around 73 or above and you have the AC on, the system will default to the recirculate mode every time the car is started. Many here have gotten into the habit of manually changing to the fresh air mode after every restart because we have found that, when the system is continuously running in the recirculate mode, the cabin air quality deteriorates.

If you go into the Setup menu for the car>vehicle>climate, you will find a setting called Auto AC (Note that those menu settings and the path to them varies slightly depending on whether your ES is a 2013-2015 car or a 2016-2018 ES). By default, that is set to "on". If you change it to "off", you will be able to turn the AC on and off manually by using the Fresh Air/Recirculate switch on the dash. However, there is a big negative to doing that. With that setting, whenever the AC is turned on, the system will be operating in the Recirculate mode, and you will not even be able to manually switch it to the Fresh Air mode (without also turning off the AC). And, as I said above, in the recirculate mode, cabin air quality deteriorates.