"Auto" Climate Control

Boz

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I did read that a climate control button pushed, cancels the 'Auto' feature. This is also different from my previous vehicles, as I could set the temp, and choose which vents it blew from. That being said, I'm just trying to figure out if it is an actual issue with it blowing only on the floor, or if Honda has set this in all of their vehicles...
I just checked again, and there IS some airflow to my windshield, in addition to my feet, when on full Auto, even though the display shows feet only.

Have you put your hand up to the windshield vents to see if you feel airflow while in full Auto?
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i was playing with the auto setting. if you change the temp around, it will change the vent setting
 
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I just checked again, and there IS some airflow to my windshield, in addition to my feet, when on full Auto, even though the display shows feet only.

Have you put your hand up to the windshield vents to see if you feel airflow while in full Auto?
Yup. I put my hand over the windshield vents, as well as the front vents. It seems to only blow to the floor.
 

Aetheric Continua

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I just checked again, and there IS some airflow to my windshield, in addition to my feet, when on full Auto, even though the display shows feet only.

Have you put your hand up to the windshield vents to see if you feel airflow while in full Auto?
I was going to post something similar.

I noticed today that with the auto set to 72~74 (not sure if this is for all temperatures) I could feel heat coming from both the floor and a little from the vents nearest the doors, even though the climate screen shows only the floor vent being active. When I changed this to mid and floor vents I could feel heat from all four of the mid vents.

So it would appear auto only uses floor and half of the mid vents while non-auto uses all of them.
 

dc2turbo

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depending on the temp, my will change the vents on auto
 


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More than likely the reason it doesn't run the defrost automatically all the time is a fuel efficiency thing. When you run defrost most cars kick in the A/C which will lessen fuel economy. No need to do that automatically all the time in my opinion.
 

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I have the touring model. I seem to have the opposite issue from most of u. I find the AC too strong when I press the auto button. I haven't used the heat yet as I'm in CA where it's warm. I've set the temp to 71 and it's still cold. However if I set it to 72, it gets warm. Basically, I can't find a comfortable setting. Does anyone else feel the same?
 

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More than likely the reason it doesn't run the defrost automatically all the time is a fuel efficiency thing. When you run defrost most cars kick in the A/C which will lessen fuel economy. No need to do that automatically all the time in my opinion.
I'm not looking for the defrost on the rear window. I'm just looking for the warm air to blow up the top windshield vents to melt ice and snow. Not sure if that uses more fuel.
 

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More than likely the reason it doesn't run the defrost automatically all the time is a fuel efficiency thing. When you run defrost most cars kick in the A/C which will lessen fuel economy. No need to do that automatically all the time in my opinion.
Just to add on that, if you are using the Econ mode the temperature fluctuation will be larger. Since the car will try to conserve more fuel by allowing larger standard deviation of temperature readings before kicking in.
 


Ash2016

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This morning I turned my car on and drove around 2-3 kms without turning the climate control on or you can say heating on and the car temperature gauge was at ambient after 3 kms of drive. After that I turned the heat and set the temperature on 21 degree or 70 F. The fan turns on almost on full speed as it was cold out -18 degree cent. and I noticed that the temperature gauge came half of the way from ambient temperature reading and then went up back to ambient temperature in gauge after 10 min of drive. Is it normal, has anyone else noticed that. Thanks
 

whaaaaa

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Bumping this thread to add my own experiences and input... This is my 4th Civic, and I've previously had a 2008, 2010, and 2013. The 2013 had automatic climate control, so you can say I'm quite familiar with Honda's particular logic for that system.

To address some of the comments I've seen in this thread...
  • Yes, you are supposed to, in theory, set it and forget it. You pick the temperature you feel comfortable at, and you let the car figure out how to get it there and keep it there. Throughout my years with the 2013, I kept it at 68 in the winter and 71 in the summer, and did not have to think of it much beyond that.

  • Yes, when the car is in heating mode it will blow exclusively from the bottom vents. You may disagree with whether that's ideal relative to blowing from all vents, however it is by design. Once it reaches the temperature setpoint, it should switch to all vents and reduce the fan to its lowest setting. This worked fine for me, and I had no complaints.

  • You do have manual control over the vent settings if you wish. If you select "all vents" the car will blow through all vents. The Auto light will turn off, but all other auto settings will remain engaged nonetheless. The car will still work toward reaching your temperature set point and still turn the a/c on/off, still switch between fresh air and recirc, etc. It's only that the Auto light indicator switches off if you manually override any setting.

  • The Auto climate control in the 2013 would never activate the windshield defroster. This was also by design. If the windshield fogged, you'd turn the defroster on manually. Then when the fog cleared, you'd turn it off. With the a/c drying out the air, that would usually be enough to keep the windshield from fogging up again even without the vents blowing directly on the glass. If the conditions were more extreme, just reactivate the defroster and leave it on. I am fairly sure that the 2016 works the same way.

  • There is an exception to the above when using the 2016's remote engine start:
    Honda Civic 10th gen "Auto" Climate Control oh1pb8

I hope that answers the common points of confusion for new owners coming from other brands that may have different auto climate logic.

Anyway, my own experience with the 2016 so far... I'm not sure but i may or may not have an issue with the cabin temp sensor's calibration. As I said, in my 2013 I would set it for comfort at 68-72 depending on the season. In the 2016, I need to set it much lower. My wife and I were driving home at night a few days ago, so the sun was not a factor, and it was around 50 degrees outside. It was about a 30min ride, and I had the auto climate set at 68 degrees. Even my wife, who always feels colder than me, admitted that it felt warm in the cabin. I nudged it cooler in two degree increments, and we eventually settled at a setpoint of 64 before we felt comfortable. We were both only wearing light jackets at the time. I'm certain that in my 2013 Civic under the same conditions, I could have set it at 70 and had the same comfort level.

So yesterday I did some more controlled experimenting. I had to take a ride out to the dealer to turn in an extra key and set of floormats from the 2013 I left there, which is about a 40min drive. I brought a little thermometer in the car with me and positioned it in the little sliding tray in the center storage console, and pushed the tray forward towards the shifter so that I could keep an eye on it while driving. To add, it was about 45 degrees outside and slightly overcast, so pretty good control conditions. I set the auto climate at 64, car warmed up, fans came on at mid-high speed and vents were floor only. Drove until the system got to the setpoint and I verified the fans/vents switched to low/all. Verified with my own central nervous system that I felt comfortable, and consulted with my memory to confirm that I was feeling much the same as I would have with the temp set to 70-72 in the 2013. Glanced down at my little thermometer, and... it said 64.

Next I raised the setpoint up to 70. Heat mode came back on, floor vents only, fans sped up. Started feeling quite warm. Waited until the system seemed to reach the setpoint and the fans quieted back to low. Cabin temp felt as it would had I set the temp to like 76-77 in the 2013. Glanced down at the thermometer again, and it said 70.

So now I'm thinking that the 2016 auto climate is accurate, and it was actually my 2013 sensor that was wrong the whole time. It occurs to me that when in my car, I'm usually wearing clothes. In the summer it would be t-shirt and jeans or shorts, and in the winter it would be a full on winter jacket. If I set my home thermostat to 68 and sat on my couch wearing my winter coat and boots, I'd feel warm and sweaty for sure. But in the 2013 civic, I'd set it for 68 with the coat on and feel fine. So maybe the 2013 was miscalibrated the whole time, or maaaayyyyybeeee it was by design? Maybe the 2013 was calibrated for 'perceived temperature' knowing that most people would not take their clothes into account and instinctively adjust their car climate to the same temp as their preferred home thermostat room temperature? Maybe Honda thought at the time that this would cut down on confused phone support calls? And maybe they decided that the 2016 auto climate would nix all that in favor of the actual reality temperature? Could be?

I left the thermometer in the car and will do some more testing over the next week or so, just for the sake of my own fiendish curiosity. Hope this was informative for any wayward googlers who recently acquired a new civic.

Oh, and one more thing I just remembered! In the 2013, in auto mode, you could visually verify whether the A/C was on or off by the light indicator on the physical A/C button. On the 2016, however, I'm not certain that this is the case within the display audio climate interface. Granted, it's still winter in NY and the warmest day I experimented with was only 50 degrees, but even at the lowest temp setting, the A/C control would not light up to indicate it was on. The air out of the vents was cold, but that could very well have just been 50deg air from outside passing through.

Perhaps in auto mode the A/C will not activate until the outside temperature passes a certain threshold, but I have no way to verify that for a few months. If I manually turn the A/C on it certainly lights up. Can anyone in a warm climate verify whether the A/C visually indicates that it is on when auto climate is cooling on a warm day? Or will we be forced to listen carefully for whether the compressor is clicking on and off?

UPDATE: The thermometer used in this test was a piece of garbage which was too slow to react to be of any use in this situation. I've done further testing with a better instant read thermometer, and confirmed my initial guess that the climate control is miscalibrated by 7-8 degrees. See post below.
 
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PS3

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Bumping this thread to add my own experiences and input... This is my 4th Civic, and I've previously had a 2008, 2010, and 2013. The 2013 had automatic climate control, so you can say I'm quite familiar with Honda's particular logic for that system.

I left the thermometer in the car and will do some more testing over the next week or so, just for the sake of my own fiendish curiosity. Hope this was informative for any wayward googlers who recently acquired a new civic.
I thought this was a good idea so I tried it this morning. I used a calibrated digital instant-read thermometer during my morning commute. It was overcast and in the low 40's outside. I set the auto climate control to 66. When the car thought it reached that temperature (fans backed off, etc.), the actual temperature in the cabin (near the temperature sensor to the right below the steering wheel) was 74. That is an 8 degree difference - unacceptably different if you ask me. No wonder I have been setting the auto control to 62 and feeling comfortable. I wonder if that is something I should have checked or just chalk it up as different from my previous Honda? Anyone want to experiment in their vehicle?
 

whaaaaa

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I thought this was a good idea so I tried it this morning. I used a calibrated digital instant-read thermometer during my morning commute. It was overcast and in the low 40's outside. I set the auto climate control to 66. When the car thought it reached that temperature (fans backed off, etc.), the actual temperature in the cabin (near the temperature sensor to the right below the steering wheel) was 74. That is an 8 degree difference - unacceptably different if you ask me. No wonder I have been setting the auto control to 62 and feeling comfortable. I wonder if that is something I should have checked or just chalk it up as different from my previous Honda? Anyone want to experiment in their vehicle?
Interesting that your thermometer read such a big discrepancy, which seems to support my initial gut reaction that things were miscalibrated, while mine was dead on with the set point. Admittedly, my thermometer is a piece of junk, not instant read, and without any means to calibrate, however I've used it in my home for several years and it seemed to be reading correctly indoors. I have an instant read cooking thermometer that I'll give a shot later today and report back.
 

whaaaaa

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Ok, so after some further testing with a better thermometer, I've found that the car's climate control is indeed off by around 7-8 degrees F, as was my initial guess. I'm not 100% confident in the accuracy of this thermometer, but it's clearly way more trustworthy than the unit I used for my previous test. I did hold it up to my home thermostat which was displaying a room temp of 69, and the instant read thermometer read 69.7, so close enough for this case. For all tests I positioned the thermometer carefully in the center console, making sure that it was not getting a direct air current from any vent, and making sure that the sensor was not coming into contact with anything except air. Just for extra confirmation, I also held the thermometer near the car's sensor under the steering wheel and saw identical readings. The thermometer is sensitive to 0.1 degrees, but due to practicality and reality I am just rounding to the nearest degree. In all cases, once reaching what the car believed to be its set point, the thermometer showed minor fluctuations of about 0.2 degrees in either direction.

First test, 40 degrees outside temp, drove about 20min with the climate control set at 70, beginning with a cold car. Reached destination, checked thermometer, and it showed 78 and holding pretty steady. I then sat in the parking lot for about 20min (wasting gas) to play with some finer adjustments. First I set the temp down to 65, while I watched the thermometer creep downward. To the car's credit, the temperature in the cabin began falling near instantly as soon as I made the adjustment. I kept watching the thermometer until it eventually leveled off at 73 after a couple minutes. Next I set the climate down just two degrees more at 63, and the thermometer leveled off at 71. Went down to 59, and the thermo leveled at a steady 67. Went back up to 68, and the thermometer predictably read as 76.

From this test it's clear that the sensor calibration was off by exactly 8 degrees, with maybe a margin of error of 1 or 2 degrees due to the nature of the thermometer I used. On the positive side, the climate control is extremely responsive and precise. With each adjustment the temperature rose and fell very rapidly, and once reaching its set point it held very steady with extremely minimal fluctuations. The only real issue here is that you have to subtract 8 degrees from the temperature you really want.

Next test, 35 degrees outside temp, cold car, started off this drive with the climate control set at 62 and went about 30min. Upon arrival checked the thermometer and it showed 69. Inched the control up to 64, and within 2 or 3 minutes the thermometer stabilized at 71. So this time the offset appeared to be 7 degrees, but I am willing to attribute that minor discrepancy from the first test to the thermometer more than the car, as 1 degree is well within a reasonable margin of error.

Final test (for now), 20 minute drive, 40 degrees outside, cold car, climate set to 65. Got home and thermometer read 72.

So again, the car's climate control is actually really nice and really precise, it's just offset by a whopping 7-8 degrees. Knowing this, it should be easy to compensate mentally and just keep the climate set to 60-65 for comfort, depending on the season and outerwear. On the other hand, that's a hell of an offset! Plus, the climate control's range only goes down to 58 before hitting max "Lo" which leaves very little room at the bottom if anyone should want it cooler than usual. At a setting of 58, I can expect the actual temperature in the car to maintain 65-66. I don't know why anyone would want to cooler than that really, but if they did, they should have the ability to go colder all the way down to 58 as it's supposed to be. I fully intend to badger my dealership service dept about this issue and bring all the evidence I can, and I encourage everyone else to do the same. The first time I mentioned it I was told that there was no way to calibrate the cabin sensor, which is kind of ridiculous if you think about it. Even with the outside thermometer, there's a user controllable adjustment where you can move it +/- a few degrees if you feel it's not accurate. If there's really no way to calibrate the climate sensor, I would be shocked, and then I would demand they get Honda to figure something out.

Granted all of my testing was done on cold days using the heat, and I remain curious how well it performs with cooling the cabin on hot days. I have a 60 degree and sunny day coming up next week, so I may park in the sun with the moonroof unshielded for a while to try to get the cabin temp up to 80-90 if I can, and then see what happens.
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