The A/C recirculation mode will be turned off automatically after few minutes (20 minutes if in AUTO mode and 5 minutes in EC mode based on manual). Is there any way to disable this setting?

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Harry (94 C280)

About the only time that you would want recycled air (all of the time) is under max A/C. And that is what happens, even when you press the recric button the system is already in that mode so nothing more happens. Other than at max A/C you are correct the system is designed to allow fresh air into the car.

I probably didn't make myself clear. Here in LA many times I got stock on the jamed highway 405. The A/C recirculation mode is a good feature to keep the poluted outside air getting into the cabin. However, it got automatically turned off after few minutes. I am wondering if there is any way to let recirculation mode stay on forever until I touch the switch again to turn it off. Thanks.

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Harry (94 C280)

If it stays on forever you will stand a good chance of icing the evaporator, which will really cut down your cool air flow. They made it that way for a reason. If it's that bad in LA, you may have to go with an aftermarket gas mask with a HEPA filter. Buy one for yourself and all your passengers.

The human body puts out a fair bit of pollution... if you say in recirc mode for 1hr, the air you'd be breathing would probably have more CO2 in it that the 'polluted' air outside ;-)


Bri

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Brian Drought
1991 300CE
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~drought/
ICQ: 2180069

Han -

FYI:
Univ. Maryland issued (last year?) the results of a two-year air-pollution study to determine the toxicity of emissions in heavy traffic (or heavy-pollution) environments.

I remember it was determined that the air toxicity levels in a car with closed windows and recirculated can be as much as thirty times greater than a car with all the windows open.

The idea is that air filters on cars are meant to catch large particulates (pollens, dust, odors, etc) - NOT toxic emission by-products, which are continually drawn into the car, even in recirc-mode.

The study suggested that your best bet for better air is to leave the windows OPEN (or at least cracked), and the recirulation off. Air-EXCHANGE is the important thing...

As to Jeffsr's comment, we people here in LA do not need a gas mask. It is nice that we can see what we breathe. As for the A/C evaporator icing, there are control devices within the A/C system to prevent it. It will be iced only if these control devices fail. Once it is iced, the air will not be cold.

David

be459:

As John Lindsay, former mayor of New York City once said " I don't trust air which I can't see".

As a former inhabitant in Glendale, California, I sympathize, but are you aware that Houston is now the smog capital of the world, not LA? ......Andras