free

Can somebody please clarify this for me?

Scenario:
Driving in winter time EL fairmont, heater is on with fresh air. Suddenly you approach a truck, cannot overtake, smelly air starts to get inside your car. You hit RECIRCULATE button and you get it to work but at the same time AirCon gets started. You switch off the aircon but the damn thing goes back to fresh air.

IS THIS NORMAL?

kelnic

check your "fresh/recirculate" box behind the glove box. There is a plastic arm that is attached to the vaccum diaphram that operates this flap to close off the fresh air coming in to the car, what happens is the plastic arm breaks off. this is a common problem for the E series falcons.

free

I can switch between fresh and recirculate. My problem is as I stated in the original post as follows:
- If the heater is on (manual or auto) and I press recirculate button A/C is automatically turned on
- The manual says that A/C can be turned off in this situation. That is correct to some degree. Yes it is possible to turne off A/C but fresh air is also automatically selected. If I hit recirculate button again, A/C is automatically turned on. This is an endless loop.
- I did not notice any problems in summer because I did not use the heater at all and obviously fresh air/recirculate issue was not obvious to me. This is the first winter since I bought this car.
The interesting thing is that the manual does not say that it is not possible to have heater and recirculate at the same time (without A/C) but it does say that if you want to turn off A/C you can do so. There is no reference to fresh/ recirculate issue.
I need to say that the climate control display does not show any errors on reset.

Benji2665

It does this in my EB2Ghia too, I'd say its 'normal', I find its annoying but don't use RECIRC often.

Ben

jas24zzk

G'day,
recirculated air needs the air con as it dries the air.
Recirculated air tends to build its moisture content, which compounds fog./mist on the inside.

Try this on a day your car is misted up inside, use FRESH air, and see how ling it takes to clear the inside...turn the aircon on and see how quick it dries.

I don;t have auto aircon, but have driven vehicles that do, and the difference is amazing..esp in that you dont have to think about it

Cheers
Jas

free

Thank you for the reply. It still appears to me that the logic behind it is wrong. What about the smell that comes through in slow trafic or in car parks etc. What do you do if you want to get warm quicker (normally you would use recirculate). Then there is also increased fuel consumption issue if you use aircon all the time. The bottom line here is obviously that there is no way to use "recirculate" unless the aircon is on. This is plain stupid.
I just hope that I have a small fault which can be fixed.

jas24zzk

G'day,
you can make a modifcation to overcome it. But you need to be a little technically minded.

It is a simple matter of finding the wire in the dash the energises the Aircon unit, and putting in a switch.

You loose true automatic climate control, but you gain CONTROL of the aircon.

Cheers
Jas

Scrotus

I agree its annoying when u want to block out the fumes and all u get is less fumes but still chocking. Its comply fked. Until this post I thought the car had a problem, but obviously normal.

smally351

Checked an EF Fairmont at work today and it was exactly the same

free

Thank you all.