Air-Conditioning not cold enough - Will I be charged if it's "within spec"?

[Zoidz]

There's not a single automotive AC on earth that will be limited to a 20 degree differential when working correctly.

We don't really know that, lol. They should be capable of 25 - 35 degrees, perhaps a bit more depending on design, OAT, humidity. But if a Yugo came with AC, it would not surprise me if it struggled to achieve 15 degrees temperature difference.

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[SwampNut]

Do you not understand that recirc is needed to allow the system to continue to drop interior temps when the heat load outside is high? This should be fairly obvious, no?

I've lived in places with 100-130 degree temps for the last 38 years, what do you think? Also, you don't need recirc until it gets truly ridiculous.

Hey Swampy, maybe you should post a video and prove me wrong. Wait or your 110 degree day and then throw a thermometer in your vent and show us the temp and video it as it drops. I'd love to see that.

Maybe you should post a video showing only a 20 degree difference?

 

[SwampNut]

I got sucked into believe that recirc changes output temp, which of course, it really doesn't. Output temp is primarily determined by the condensor air temp and somewhat the system temp. Predictably, the output temp with recirc off in 115+ weather was 51-59. Not as predictably, outside air was generally lower than recirc. The overall drop was generally averaging 55. Yes I have a few videos. Your timing was funny, because I'm chasing an insane problem with the AC and need to get videos/data for the Rivian SC to see this.

 

[Zoidz]

I got sucked into believe that recirc changes output temp, which of course, it really doesn't. Output temp is primarily determined by the condensor air temp and somewhat the system temp. Predictably, the output temp with recirc off in 115+ weather was 51-59. Not as predictably, outside air was generally lower than recirc. The overall drop was generally averaging 55. Yes I have a few videos. Your timing was funny, because I'm chasing an insane problem with the AC and need to get videos/data for the Rivian SC to see this.

You really can't make a blanket statement that recirc does not matter for a couple of reasons. From a discharge temperature viewpoint, It depends on designed capacity vs operating conditions. In an obviously extreme example just to illustrate, if the AC system is designed to remove just 1000 btu, recirc absolutely makes a difference. You won't get 50 degree discharge air in volume with 115 OAT with a 1000 btu cooling system. But with recirc, each pass of the air would remove 1000 BTU of heat progressively/incrementally eventually lowering the temperature. The vehicle manufacturer, for cost or physical space reasons, may have unfortunately but intentionally undersized the design capacity.

Secondly, recirc provides a vital role when operating in humid environments. Recirc progressively removes additional latent heat (heat contained in the water in the air) from the vehicle's cabin, while a single pass of outside air is always going to contain more latent heat. A single pass just is not going to remove all the latent heat. A thermometer might show 50 degree cooled air temperature, but that's indicating sensible heat. There can still be plenty of latent heat in the air in humid areas, which is what recirc progressively removes and makes you feel cooler. But if you are located in a dry climate, latent heat is not much of a factor because it practically doesn't existed.

 

[SwampNut]

You really can't make a blanket statement that recirc does not matter for a couple of reasons.

That's correct, one shouldn't do that, and I wouldn't.

 

[Time2Roll]

afaik the 20 degree thing is for home units of intake vs output and this is virtually always recirculating and has nothing to do with outside air temperature.

In the automotive world generally there will be a specification around 40 to 50 degrees. This is really to avoid freeze ups. Need to get into the service manual.

I was a certified automotive tech back in the '80s. A lot has changed and a lot has continued the same.

 

[RD TRP EV]

How about if you are both right?

The 20º differential is for degrees Celsius which is about 40-50ºF.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/1143ce3e-c79f-41dd-a21e-b39cc9814253#0

 

[SwampNut]

How about if you are both right?

The 20º differential is for degrees Celsius which is about 40-50ºF.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/1143ce3e-c79f-41dd-a21e-b39cc9814253#0

This is America, we don’t take kindly to that kind of language here. I did mean to make a Celsius joke earlier. I actually work in metric temps FAR more often than Fahrenheit.

 

[SwampNut]

Like I said, I need to figure out an insane AC issue so I was already doing a bunch of videos of it (and have for weeks). So I already had my meter in there ready to test. I decided to cut to the money shot, and didn't include the various other earlier tests. I covered the heat load issue which is very different from output temp, and much harder to test, so nobody does that I'm aware of. I'll post the full problem videos later, I need to edit them for the SC to make sense of them, and everyone else.

 

[ElGuano]

Not saying there isn't an issue w/ the A/C keeping up, just that the things we complain about on this forum are often such 1st world problems.

*Looks left*
*Looks right*

Last I looked, this car can cost north of $120,000. Sounds like it's first-world by its very nature!

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