Does turning the A/C off actually turn on the heat?

[Travis Wills]

I was doing some hypermiling testing this week and I decided to turn “off” the A/C system all together.

The fan doesn’t appear to go at all in the off position. No air blows out of the vents either. However, over 15 minutes of driving the interior of the car began to heat up significantly. Has anyone else experienced this?

It almost seems like on really cold days you are better off turning the whole system to “Off” as opposed to turning it on.

In the “off” position does it vent engine heat into the cabin?

 

[robz32]

No. When you tunr off the AC the mixer flap will switch to let air from the outside in the cabin.

If you dont want this to happen, you need to make sure to press the recirculation button after turning off the AC.

 

[Travis Wills]

No. When you tunr off the AC the mixer flap will switch to let air from the outside in the cabin.

If you dont want this to happen, you need to make sure to press the recirculation button after turning off the AC.

It was really cold outside when I did this and the car still got very warm. Where is the heat coming from when you turn the system off?

 

[robz32]

Check your temperature before turning off the climate control. If you had it blowing heat, it will let air in from outside but since the air mixer flap was on the heat it will blow hot air.

 

[oddball]

Jackass reply: The heat comes from the engine.

Slightly less jackassery: I reviewed the service manual a bit and it appears there is no heater control valve, which means coolant constantly circulates through the heater core regardless of control settings. This car does have a blend door (which is getting a bit uncommon), so it'll likely be sitting in some position with the system off. Maybe full cold, maybe full hot, maybe wherever it was when you turned the system off. Who knows?
All cars have a massive high pressure area at the base of the windshield when moving forward. And that's where the cowl vents are to let outside air into the car. So even with everything off and all the air mix doors closed air can easily be pushed into the car when on the highway. And the system might specifically move the air source door to the fresh air position with the system off.

I'd recommend keeping climate control on, just setting it to manual and turning off the A/C.

 

[eflyguy]

I regularly set mine manually to vent with the temp down at minimum, AC off, recirc off, fan where desired. I get fresh outside air, never felt it warmer.

The only times I've turned it off completely was if I was driving with windows (and perhaps roof) open.

 

[dermunkee]

I had a similar situation, turned out that the rear climate control was set to heat, it gets hot back there. I set it to the middle position and it's not bothering me in any weather.

 

[Ozstung]

Boy am I glad I stumbled on this thread. I've had the Stinger two years now and I'm not one to normally touch the climate control or put the AC on unless I have to.

Long story short as mentioned a good 20+ months back in the Forum I took the car back to Kia to say the transmission tunnel area was burning and singing my leg. I put my hand down in the foot well and reached up and felt a pipe which burned my hand. At best Kia said the car was poorly insulated, it was the heater core pipe. As I found out I was one of the few people who don't set the climate control or AC on which turns out negates some flap that allows heat in. Some folks kept telling me I must have had the rear AC switched to hot which wasn't the case.

The thread way back was something like " hot cabin temperatures"

 

[namja]

Boy am I glad I stumbled on this thread. I've had the Stinger two years now and I'm not one to normally touch the climate control or put the AC on unless I have to.

Long story short as mentioned a good 20+ months back in the Forum I took the car back to Kia to say the transmission tunnel area was burning and singing my leg. I put my hand down in the foot well and reached up and felt a pipe which burned my hand. At best Kia said the car was poorly insulated, it was the heater core pipe. As I found out I was one of the few people who don't set the climate control or AC on which turns out negates some flap that allows heat in. Some folks kept telling me I must have had the rear AC switched to hot which wasn't the case.

The thread way back was something like " hot cabin temperatures"

Stinger cabin temperature