wwest, thank you. finally someone supported me on odd ways this system is designed.

there's a great feature in TCH climate control. it is how it warms up. fastest i have ever had in any car. otherwise, it has mind of its own. combine that with strange air flow from dashboard vents - i keep turning it on "face" mode, just to make sure that it does run warm air, as it goes from warm to lukewarm, almost feels like it's cycling from heat to lukewarm. and yes, that 99 Rx300 does same. so it's the way it is designed, it's philosophy.

well it's whatever. most users know no difference, it's all "great" no matter how it really is. no one from Toyota will listen to us anyway. or any major manufacturer for that matter. THEY do always know better what's best for us.

thanks everyone for sharing their thoughts.

 

First, recirculate mode is still 10% outside air. It is not something you need to avoid. The air filter and plasma generator work best without 100% outside air. The bigger the difference in outside/inside temperature, the harder the AC has to work when recirc is off (heating or cooling).

Second, AC with heat will keep your windows from fogging up at minimal fuel load. The worst case is a few MPGs at low speeds with max cooling. At high speeds or less cooling it is much less. I, too, turn the AC off when it is not needed, but at the first sign of glass fogging, the AC comes on. Your Camry Hybrid AC is 100% electrical, and is working very little when the car is heating, only enough to keep the air dry. It is not like the mechanical AC that works harder when the engine RPMs are high, even if little cooling is needed. The Camry AC is variable speed, controlled only by AC load.

Third, setting the temp is ALWAYS auto. The car will mix engine heat to regulate the vent air to the set temp. If the car is hotter than set, then no heat is added. If the system is on auto, and the AC is off, then the car will just increase the fan speed. You can control the temp setting, but not the heat mix directly.
You can control the fan speed:auto off or on - just change the fan speed with the auto on, or
let the car do it: auto on - turn auto off then back on if you want to change from manual fan speed to auto.
You can control whether the AC is allowed to come on automatically: AC on/auto on - it will come on if the air is moist or hotter than the temp setting,
always on: AC on/auto off, or
never on: AC off/auto either.

Fourth, you can let the auto mode chose which vents are used, or set them. It will send high heat to the floor and windshield, low heat to floor mostly and mid vents, cool air to the mid vents mostly and floor lightly. In manual you get only a few mixes to choose from, but they are more than adequate for most. If in auto, the mix will vary as the heat load varies. In auto off, it stays where you set it.

Fifth, AC/ventilation systems are very complex if you want them to work well automatically. The car monitors the solar load through directional IR heat sensors on the dash, and measures the air temps at the ceiling, in the return air vents at the front and rear of the interior, and at the inlet outside the car. Even turning the car moves the solar loading inside the cabin, and the AC system adjusts immediately before you should notice that the hot sun went from one side to another. My Volvo did an awesome job, such that I rarely touched the AC controls except to turn it on or off, depending on whether the windows were up or down. My Mercedes was pathetic, with wild swings in interior temps that were uncomfortable (and working to factory spec according to the dealer). My Lexus and Toyota do a great job, if not quite as great as the Volvo.

-- Alan

 

"..it goes from warm to lukewarm, almost feels like it's cycling..."

Initial cabin warmup does supply fairly high FOOTWELL heat level, but as the cabin air temperature rises toward the setpoint the system airflow will begin to be cooler and cooler. Finally switching to dash (face & upper body) air outflow wherein the outflow temperature might be as low as 20F lower than that initial footwell flow. Although you can feel it DIRECTLY as well the footwell outflow will always be a bit warmer than that from the dash.

The idea is that WARM airflow to the face and upper body will be somewhat discomforting whereas to the feet and legs, covered by shoes and pants, not so discomforting.

 

Bottom line - TCH's climate control system sucks, from a human interface perspective. Period.

Controls on the other side of the dash (ECON), some setting with no memory.. others with memory.. the fact that it overrdes you for Recirc whenever it feels like it.. Inability to use AUTO with other air distribution modes, and (as the original poster showed) vague labels on buttons.

It is so bad, I swore to myself I would never buy another vehicle with it's setup.

 

From my own experience I agree on one thing, the recirc. sets itself about 99.999 % exactly opposite from what I would expect/ want it to do and it's been annoying me as well from the day one , but it just reinforces my general hate of anything fully automatic, as such systems never work the way they should, for some reason. However, otherwise my climate control works fine. I do know recirc button can be reprogrammed to manual, which would solve this issue for me, but requires trip to the dealer and there is no way I'm spending money and time on this, so pretty much I override it all the time. As far as never buying a car with similar system, I would never go that far. No car is perfect and the fact that recirc programming is the most annoying thing about the car, at least in my case, actually is a great thing, since I can think of thousands of other things much more annoying, like breaking down every six months requiring towing, (my friends Audi), getting 16mpg, with gas costing $4.25 (my brother's Nissan) etc. etc. Come to think of it, outside of that silly recirc I don't have other complains.

 

If you can get your hands on a COMPLETE C-best list you will find that many of your complaints can be resolved by having the dealer change these from factory default to much more sensible settings.

Dealers are VERY reluctant(***) to disclose the entire C-best list, you have to be really PUSHY.

*** That might be because IMMHO it would take a Japanese factory technician who speaks English to explain, interpret, some of the more technically obtuse settings.