A/C Recirculation Question
 

I have a Laramie Crew Cab with the dual zone AC of course...

Does anyone else's A/C automatically switch back into recirculation mode when the A/C? The light doesn't come one, but it clearly switches back to recirculate by itself. I have it set on air conditioning and vents set on the top set of vents (not windshield defrost). I am not getting any DTC's as far as I know, but this bothers me because there are times that I want to draw fresh air from outside and force air out the open window. Any help or insight is appreciated. If no one else has noticed this or is having this problem, I may go visit my dealership.

Thanks!

Hmm... I don't think I've paid enough attention. Mine has been on auto and auto from day 1 and I've had no complaints. It's cools quickly, heats quickly, etc.

Same here, I set both my ATC controls to auto and leave the temp set anywhere from 70 to 72, summer or winter. The truck does the rest, and a fine job it does.

It will do whatever it needs when set on auto to obtain the temp set. I have been playing with it trying to figure out it's logic so far. If you set the temp at 69-70 if will switch over to fresh after a few minutes it seems. It will still blow pretty much full cold because it is such a difference from the outside air.

The other thing you can do is set the temp wherever except low (low automatically will be recirc) and set the mode to vent (face etc.) and then push the recirc button on then off, you will notice it will go to fresh once you turn it off. For whatever reason they have programmed the thing to go into recirc mode a lot.

I have always hated recirculation mode, but it does cool a lot better, but I hate the stale air feeling you get, so I usually crack the back vent window a touch to draw some air in allowing the ac still to blow at it's coldest. It seems to work ok.

I have been pretty happy with the a/c performance on this truck so far, probably because it does use recirc a lot.

I have worked on cars as a dealer tech for 21 years and have seen quite a few cars in my time. I work for a Honda dealer now and can tell you most of our cars you need to use the recirc mode to even get them to cool half decent. We have a lot of complaints from people when using fresh mode that it doesn't cool worth crap. Once you switch it, it drops quite a bit. I have called Honda tech line about some of the complaints and they always tell me the same thing, if you wan't max cooling you need to leave it on recirc mode. Trying to cool 95 to 100 degree ambient air and blow 40 on you is asking too much from a a/c system. Once the air gets to 70 or so it isn't hard to obtain mid 40 degree readings from the vents.

I mainly leave mine at 69 or so and let it do it's thing, sometimes I manually turn the fan down and notice after a while when it gets colder, it switches to a mix or outside air. I also cant really tell a difference when settin the temp lower except that it stays in recirc mode pretty much forever trying to obtain the set temp.

There is nothing wrong with you truck, it is the way it was designed. I am still trying to figure it out exactly how it switches from recirc to fresh, but 69-70 seems to work pretty good overall here. It has been around 95ish outside.

Since you are on the subject of the Auto Temp Controls, I had a question. If in Auto and it would say cool down outside to where the airconditioning is not needed, does it shut the compressor down or does it add heat to the air stream? Just curious if you are supposed to leave the AC button on all the time or not even if it is cooler outside. Seems dumb to leave it on if the system is adding heat so the air is not too cool which would waste fuel by running the compressor all the time. I know it does that in defrost mode to dry the air but I'm talking about just the normal in cab heating / cooling.

This is my first vehicle with a setup like this, just curious how it works. Been running it in manual mostly since I like to have the windows or sunroof open a lot of the time.

If you leave the AC button on, it will switch to heat with the AC on if the temp drops. I typically leave the AC on year round due to the humidity which I do not like.

69 is my ideal temp year round.

So the compressor contiues to run when the heat kicks on?

If you have the A/C on, then yes. You can always turn the A/C off.... just need to push 1 button 1 time....

I know that your thread is quite old but I have been searching a lot on this issue as well. I replaced my recirculation door on my Laramie last week (took the dash out and all) and when I put the door back in place, I tried it by pushing the Recirc button, the door went all the way back towards the firewall, all was good. When it pushed the button again to turn Recirc off, the door only came back an inch or so. I then brought the truck back to the dealer for a blend door recalibration and they actually almost made fun of me (after recalibrating it twice in a row) apparently those trucks will only get fresh air as soon as you pass the "Floor only" position, so Floor+defrost will close the recirc door fully. I don't understand why they would do such a thing. Anyhow let me know if that's how yours was working like.. and if you found anything else.