Here in Phoenix, where we get much hotter, but stay very dry, the ECO seems to work well year round, even when the temps are above 115. We also get dips below freezing on winter mornings, and a couple minutes with the seat heaters take care of the slower warm up of the car interior on ECO. Only in rain with the high humidity, do I find the ECO is too slow to clear the windows. So other than trips to higher humidity places, I need ECO about 2 times per year (OK, it rains a few more times a year here than that!).

-- Alan

 

Seat heaters??? We got seat heaters?????? Oh... yeah!!! Brilliant idea Alan!!!! Found the buttons yesterday. Great for heating your tush.... or keeping the pizza warm on the run home!!! Brilliant!!!!

 

LOL yes the seat heaters are brilliant and really do alleviate what you consider slow warm up. However, I feel the Camry's four cylinder warms up way quicker than my former all gas six cylinder did.

As far as the ECO button goes, I haven't had enough experience with it yet to know if it has an effect, but the theory behind it makes sense, and I think it's far more than manufacturer's hype as previously stated.

 

BTW on the AC side of the discussion, the car defaults to automatically engaging the AC, which drove me crazy when I'd start driving on a hot day with the windows down or the roof open and realize after a while that it was turning on the AC. You can have the dealer reconfigure it (I did) but I forget what exactly you have to do. Somewhere in here there's a document with various settings and their defaults; I printed that out and circled what I wanted them to change. If I hadn't they'd have been clueless, I'm sure.

But honestly I rarely use heat or AC, so never even think about ECO. And frost inside is a pain--answer to that is usually to crack a window or leave the moonroof open so the humidity can escape.

 

It has been a "tradition" in Florida to put the convertible top down, and drive with the AC on, for as long as I can remember. If you have a convertible, you really want to have it down on a nice sunny day. But, the nice sunny days down here are often so hot and humid, that the AC is seriously necessary. So, they just did both. They claim the cold air falls down and stays in the "tub" of the convertible, as long as you don't go too fast.

Never had a convertible myself. I have ridden in a few, with the AC on.