I was just curious as to how many people have done their A/C hack? Also just wanted to make sure how many people here actually know what it is. I actually forgot and wrote down the wrong thing! Here's what the hack is for!

UPDATE!!! I screwed up on this thread! The hack is for NOT having to use A/C for DEFROST!!!! Man, I woke up too early!! Righto, you know how you're forced to use A/C when you have the defroster on? Well, do the hack and you don't. Soooooooo sorry for screwing that up.

'00 Insight "Wazabi" -75,000+ miles
'03 Toyota Matrix - 81,000+ miles
'03 HCH-CVT-OSBM-41,000+ miles (retired 04-10-06)
"I'm very secure with my little Insight, no Prius envy here."

My 05 HCH runs the fan when the car is in autostop, you can feel the compressor go off because if you sit too long you feel the hot air. Usually, I will roll down the windows if I sit too long and hope for a cross breeze. Man, I feel for you dudes and would hack mine too!

"Hybrid Owners Do It Both Ways"

I just set my fan on manual about half way on the dial. Then I don't realy need the ac at all. I've been comfortable in the 90+ weather with it like that.

So honda actualy keeps the fan on in the 05 models? I wish there were a way to reprogram the car so the 03 + 04s could take advantage of that.

My hydroponics experiment

You ever notice how hard it is to lip read cartoon characters?
"Crazy is what the sane call Delta Flyer"

Luckily, I have an '05 model, and yes the fan does keep running. With the Dallas weather now reaching 90's to close to 100, I am running my AC constantly now. When we were in the 80's I could live without it. I know my next milage entry will not be good, because with the temp in the 90's on the weekends my wife insists on me not using economy mode.

But this talk reminded me of my 1980 Toyota Corolla. I'd turn the A/C on, but whenever I stopped in traffic, or a a light, the compressor would stop working and the fan would just blow hot air. Needless to say, that made me very unpopular with my carpool in the hot summer of '80! I always thought it was because the 4-cylinder engine in that car was not all that powerful, and it just couldn't pull the load while standing still. But I really loved that car... drove it 9 years before I traded it in on an '89 Corolla.

Let's hope I get to keep my '05 HCH that long (but the '06 HCH sounds intrigueing.

If the ventiation system is set to full auto:
The top vent contro set to auto and the fan speed set to auto then the fan stops with autostop.

If any of these controls are out of the AUTO position the fan continues to blow with autostop, but since the engine isn't running the air warms untiil you are out of autostop again.

Did I miss something here? Did someone actually post a "hack" that allows defroster use without A/C compressor use?

Your ECONO button is essentially your AutoStop on-off switch and becomes active whenever your blower selector is not OFF.

By default your AC compressor always comes ON when you select DEFROST.
By default your ECONO button does nothing while on DEFROST. (AutoStop disabled)

You can change these defaults.
I've personally successfully changed the ECONO button default so the car will go into AutoStop while in DEFROST mode, but didn't have success with controlling the AC.
Here are some instructions, thanks to BUZZ70 (Mark):

The procedure to enable the ability to turn off the A/C when in defrost mode is:
1) Turn the vent control (top knob) to "face" (one to the right of
auto)
2) Turn the temperature knob all the way to cold (left)
3) Turn the fan control to "auto"
4) Hold the A/C and recirculate buttons down.
5) Insert the key into the ignition, turn to "Start" (or II)
6) Hold the buttons down for 7 seconds. The A/C light will blink,
then stop.
7) Release buttons.

To switch back to default, repeat the procedure above.

To allow "Econ" to be used, the procedure above is exactly the same, but you hold all 3 buttons in for step 4 until the Econ blinks.

I've heard the portion of this hack that disables the AC compressor while in Defrost mode applies only to the 2003 HCH model.

The best "hack" I've found for Defrost without compressor is to leave the fan set to OFF, and the direction control to DEFROST, which helps to keep the windows clear.

If they do fog up I rotate the fan control to HIGH for 10-30 seconds until after they have cleared again, then return the fan back to OFF.
I try to arrange this while going downhill.

i need help people lol, i just got my baby back from the shop and i tryed doing the hack and now the compressor stays on when the a/c light is on or off, can sum1 help me out with this problem plz? lol