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My A/C works fine. I've had daytime temps in the 90s with humidity and the car sitting out in the sun. I'm usually pretty comfortable with the A/C set to 60 (I don't know if it goes lower, but I just set it there) and it on 3 bars. I never hit Auto because then it goes full blast and it's too loud. I don't know who can tolerate that noise. Also, I tried out my heated seats during the winter and they were toasty. I just tried out my ventilated seats for the first time and I'm not sure whether they're OK or not because I've never had them in any car before. I immediately noticed a coolness on my butt, but it wasn't like I was sitting on a block of ice or anything. And it wasn't blowing air upwards, that I could tell. I only used it for like 2-3 minutes. It actually wasn't an option that I cared about or planned to ever use, but it came with the trim. So either way, I don't really care.
First thing I do when the car has been baking in the sun all day is open all the windows and get an air change. Once I'm moving, I turn on the AC and close the windows. I don't make the AC fight 140 degree air when I can fill the car with 90 degree air.
Live in NC. Now that temps are getting to around 90+ our 19 RDX never gets cool. Set it to Auto like I do with the other 3 cars in our house. Even if I crank it to low we are still sweating after 10 minutes. Seems like the blower is too weak. Checked the temp in the vent and it is about 57 to 58 degrees but only after the car running for 15 minutes.
If I jump in any of our other cars they handle the temps here just fine. Seems like others are fine well above this temp too. Looks like a trip to the dealer.
Live in NC. Now that temps are getting to around 90+ our 19 RDX never gets cool. Set it to Auto like I do with the other 3 cars in our house. Even if I crank it to low we are still sweating after 10 minutes. Seems like the blower is too weak. Checked the temp in the vent and it is about 57 to 58 degrees but only after the car running for 15 minutes.
If I jump in any of our other cars they handle the temps here just fine. Seems like others are fine well above this temp too. Looks like a trip to the dealer.
The AC in my 2002 Toyota Tundra with 250000 miles works better than my 2019 RDX.
But I think they were designed differently.
The Toyota is a simpified system, with just a few knobs, and I set it to the coldest setting and crank up the fan. And I feel ice cold air coming out of the vents. It cools off fast.
My RDX is much more sophisticated. It's got lots of cool settings that I can play with. But even on it's coldest setting, the air coming out of the vents is not ice cold. It eventually cools off the car, but the Tundra gets there faster.
I have been following this procedure for decades to test for the proper working of my car's AC system. I will describe the procedure using centigrade degrees, but these can easily be translated to Fahrenheit for those that still work in that system.
The first thing you will need is a thermometer that can be inserted several inches into one of the dashboard vents. This could be an indoor/outdoor thermometer with the sensor on the end of a wire, or I prefer something like this because the temperature updates every second.
The air coming out of the vents should be at least 20 degrees colder than the outside air, if the unit is working properly. However the reading is only valid under the following conditions.
1) The outdoor temperature must be above 27 degrees, because the RDX has built in protection to prevent the air from becoming any cooler than 7 degrees to prevent the evaporator from icing up and blocking air flow. Most cars have a low cutoff temperature of 3-4 degrees, but I personally measure my RDX at 7 degrees. This may be one reason why the RDX air flow feels warmer than other cars, but if outside temperature is above 27 degrees this becomes irrelevant. If the outside temperate is only 20 degrees, the air coming from the vents will only drop to 7 degrees, making it seems like there is only a 13 degree drop, and not the expected 20 degree drop.
2) The blower must be set to maximum speed in order to pass as much warm air through the system as possible. Even a poorly operating system can cool air when only a small amount is passing through.
3) The re-circulation feature must be turned off. We want to measure how much of a drop there is in the outdoor air, and not the cooler inside air.
4) The temperature setting should be set to minimum, because we don't want the automatic climate control turning the compressor on and off.
5) The RPM should be at least 1500 to ensure there is maximum flow of refrigerant, and system is operating at maximum capacity.
6) The car should be moving at least 50 KPH (30 MPH). We know that the temperature inside a parked car can rise substantially beyond the outside air temperature. We also know that we can cook an egg on the hood of a parked car at 30 degrees, but not in a 30 degree frying pan. That is because the painted metal absorbs heat. Driving the car at 50 KPH ensures that the temperature of the painted surfaces are reduce to the ambient air temperature
The 20 degree drop is the minimum that should be observed. Humid air versus dry air can effect the actual drop. I was able to observe a 22 degree drop on my own RDX today.
This sound complicated, but is actually quite simple when you do it. Each step is a requirement to make sure we are comparing apples to apples, and omitting a step can change the outcome of the test. It would be great to see everyone report back there own measurements for comparisons.
My RDX never gets "cold" even on Auto when set to LO
I drove a Hyundai Palisade last evening and on the LO setting it froze me much like my 2015 Sonata
That's the way it should work...
Palisade is looking very good to me
Maybe it’s not charged enough or over charged? Mine gets me to the point of being too cold and I’m a very warm person. I run our house AC at 66F ha ha. Hasn’t been crazy hot here but we have had high 80s and a 90s day and it seemed to work as expected for me
Maybe it’s not charged enough or over charged? Mine gets me to the point of being too cold and I’m a very warm person. I run our house AC at 66F ha ha. Hasn’t been crazy hot here but we have had high 80s and a 90s day and it seemed to work as expected for me
The dealership completely flushed and recharged the system after I told them it wasn't getting cold. I also have driven about three 2019 RDX loaners and they all do not get cold.
My 2019 RDX cools fine in the hot summer days in Texas. It is 97 degrees and my SUV is in the sun all day. AC Temp out of the Vent is 40 degrees. No Issues here! My 2019 RDX cools fine in the hot summer days in Texas. It is 97 degrees and my SUV is in the sun all day. AC Temp out of the Vent is 40 degrees.
My 2019 RDX cools fine in the hot summer days in Texas. It is 97 degrees and my SUV is in the sun all day. AC Temp out of the Vent is 40 degrees. No Issues here!.
That is a drop of over 31 degrees Celsius. The lower temperature of 40F is also the temperature at which the AC compressor shuts off to prevent icing of the evaporator, so even if the outdoor temperature dropped by 20 degrees, the vent temperature would not drop below 40F.
That is quite an exceptional amount of cooling if you followed my test procedure in post #46,
Like I said in that post, even a poorly operating system can cool small amounts of air, so the blower has to be set to maximum speed to perform the test. I don't think you would get the temperature drop you described if the blower was running at maximum speed. Can you confirm that your readings were obtained at maximum blower speed, and that the recycle light was off, on the control panel? Was the RDX being driven when you got that reading of 40F or was it parked?
It was maximum blower with recycle on and driving.
Well if your RDX was recycling the air at the time, we really can't say that the temperature dropped from 97 to 40.
I know that most people will let the system run automatically, and it will switch to recycle mode. But to truly determine the operating ability of your AC system we need to know both the input and output temperatures during your test. In this case, the air that was being recycled was probably 15 degrees less than the outside air.
I'd have to throw in my two cents with the "not enough" crowd. On any significantly hot day, crank it wide open and it just starts to get comfortable 3/4 of the way to the destination. I've had Chevy work trucks with ancient pushrod engines whose a/c could get things astonishingly cold in a matter of minutes.
Are all the "A/C doesn't work well" people using their A/C on auto (which, presumably, is full blast if it's that hot)? Just curious.
I think this issue is relative to how cold you want the car to be. I guess what I'm hearing from the "not cold" crowd is that the car should be like an icebox? I'm not being critical, I'm just wondering if that's what you want it to be. The reason I say that is because so far, even in 90+ degree and humid weather, I've done fine with three bars on my A/C and set to 60 degrees. If you asked me whether my A/C was working well, I honestly don't know what I would say. I have my vents pointed towards me and that's probably "not doing it right" because my face gets cold but maybe the rest of me is more like just cool? In other words, I'm relatively comfortable, but not cold. It's basically like how some days you drive with your window down and the wind cools you off, but it's not like you're shivering and your teeth are chattering. I guess if I wanted it colder than that, I would increase the bars. I have no idea how it is in the rest of the car, however. For example, possibly someone sitting in the trunk area (like if I kidnapped them, lol) would still say it's burning hot, but I've never been back there to see.
So, to summarize, my experience has been that it's cool, but not cold. But I haven't used full blast because it's been fine for me. And possibly it's not cooling the whole car but only rather right around me, but that's also fine for me. I guess I could crank it to full blast and report my findings if people want to know.
So the dealer found nothing wrong except for a slight under charge on the refrigerant. They adjusted it to no avail.
I took all 4 of our cars out for a loop yeaterday and attached the test results. For my tests all vehicles were on auto set at the lowest temp. I used and external thermometer that I moved between vehicles.
The RDX is supposed to be the premium car of the group but it performs horribly for AC. The cheapest vehicles (Ranger and Cruze) perform the best. We are literally sweating in the car in the 90 degree plus days. Part of the issue is the weak fan IMO.
I am taking it back to Acura for a service again this week.
So the dealer found nothing wrong except for a slight under charge on the refrigerant. They adjusted it to no avail.
I took all 4 of our cars out for a loop yeaterday and attached the test results..
Back in post #46 I described a procedure which could be used to check the operation of your AC system. With a properly working system you should obtain at least a 20 degree Celsius drop from the outdoor temperature to the vent temperature.Your spreadsheet shows that you only obtained a 17 degree Celsius drop, so I would confirm your suspicion of at least a minor problem (assuming you performed the testing with all the pre-requisite settings in place).
However with the vent temperature being only 3 degrees away from normal, doesn't explain the prolonged time required to cool the cabin (4-5 times normal).
I came across a feature in my RDX just today, that may help to explain this slow cooling temperature.
Today I reached into the back seat for something, and I noticed warm air coming from the rear center console vents. I noticed a round rotary dial mounted between the left/right vents, so I turned it to close off the air flow. As I rotated the dial I noticed that the color of the knob changed from red to blue, and chilled air started flowing out.
In past vehicles, the floor vents which blow at the feet of the front seat passengers, were also connected to a tube that routed this air under the center console, to vents placed at the rear of the console, so that rear seat passengers could adjust the amount of air flow and the direction it traveled. The air reaching the back seat vents was always the same temperature as the air leaving the front vents.
So I don't know the mechanics behind how Acura does this, but the knob that I assumed was to adjust the amount of air flow, was actually able to change from heated to cooled air. The owners manual doesn't even show this knob in the picture, and certainly doesn't mention it in the text.
I should add that I have a 2020 Platinum Elite which I think is the same as the Advanced in the US. I know the rear of the console contains the extra buttons for the seat heaters, but I don't know if this rotary dial is on all RDX trim levels.
I was not ready to be on board with the A/C thing here, but the A/C sucks in the RDX. We have been getting to the near 100's here in Central Florida and this things just doesn't cool down. I drove for 20 minutes the other day and was still hot. I will definitely look for something else as A/C is important for me.
My 19 RDX sat out in full sun today for over an hour, and when I got in, it was REALLY hot inside. Outside temp gauge on the RDX read 108 F... when we got home, my home thermometer, which was in full sun, read 111 F. I had the temp set to 72 and AUTO, (manually set to FRESH OUTSIDE AIR for a couple of minutes, then back to recirc). Within about 10 minutes it was very comfortable inside, and the fan speed had slowed down some from full blast.
I had the pano roof shade closed.
After living in the desert for over 25 years, and having owned many new cars, I can state that my RDX's A/C seems to work at least as well as the best I've owned, and much better than the worst (Mazda, more than one). I can say that it is a HUGE task to cool down a car that has been sitting for any time in the hot 100+ sun here.
My RDX, at least, has A/C that is up to this task.
OH! I have an anolog vent thermometer, I will try to remember to take it with my when I am out tomorrow and report back with the vent temps.
The AC in mine seems to work well on hot days and I'm someone who tends to feel hot pretty easily. I keep the pano roof shade closed if the sun is high as I'll feel hot from that, but I don't think that's an AC issue. The ventilated seats aren't the best I've used, but they work enough to make a difference. I haven't noticed the airflow issues in mine either, cool air is usually coming out of the dash vents noticeably.
I think I'll put it to the ultimate test in the next few days. We're expecting temps well into the 90s with extremely oppressive dew points and humidity. Heat index around 105.
In my '91 Taurus, conditions like that would sometimes cause visible fog to come out of the ducts. I guess the condenser was freezing up. Fords suck anyway.
I think I'll put it to the ultimate test in the next few days. We're expecting temps well into the 90s with extremely oppressive dew points and humidity.
LOL @ "oppressive"!
Those are normal conditions about four months out of the year here in Texas.
Only about two months here. We may be stupid but we're not crazy.
It's been 80 degrees with 90% humidity in the mornings and mid 90's with 60-70% humidity during the day.. My AC works great.. It does take a few minutes if the car is left in the sun but it's a good size volume of hat air to have to cool
Today was much "cooler" at 95 vs 100+. Humidity was also much higher (for us) at 47%.
Since the AC system works well enough to make you comfortable, perhaps that is all you or anyone else should care about. I also find that the system in my RDX cools me to a temperature that makes me comfortable.
However if we want to compare the cooling ability of one RDX to another, it has to be done under the same conditions. In post #46 I explained the conditions required, and said that a properly working system would have at least a 20 degree Celsius drop from the ambient temperature to the vent temperature. Your photo showed a 45'F vent temperature with a 95'F ambient temperature. That converts to almost a 28' Celsius drop. That sounds very impressive, but I know that is an impossible number if the conditions were set up according to my earlier post. For one thing I see that you had the temperature set at 72'F, which means that the fan was not at it's fastest speed. Even a poorly operating AC unit can cool down small volumes of air, but would do a lousy job when air volume increases. We also don't know if you were cooling down 95'F ambient air, or were you only cooling 75'F cabin air (i.e. re-circulation was on)
So for those who are happy with the way their system performs, they shouldn't look for problems, just be happy. For those that are complaining about the poor operation, you really need to test your system under the proper conditions and have some numeric results to actually confirm you have a problem and it's "more than a feeling".
BTW I posted yesterday that I switched the vent on the rear of the center console to blow cool air. Today's temperatures were almost identical to those of last week, and yet today is the first day that my blower slowed down to the 2nd lowest fan speed (estimating). Without the added heat from the console vent, I was finally able to reach my "set" temperature.
Since the AC system works well enough to make you comfortable, perhaps that is all you or anyone else should care about. I also find that the system in my RDX cools me to a temperature that makes me comfortable.
... For one thing I see that you had the temperature set at 72'F, which means that the fan was not at it's fastest speed. ...(i.e. re-circulation was on)
...
Trust me, when it is 95 F+ here with the system set at 72, after sitting in the sun for an hour, it WILL blow (and was) at full speed. This was about 5 minutes after starting the car, and yes, the recirc. was on. When I checked the temp in the vent when I first entered the vehicle, it was 99F. Obviously, I don't know what the ambient air temp in the cabin was during my drive, and I was the only passenger, and I was comfortable.
I am happy with the performance, and if it works well here... what else can I say? As you also mentioned. There may be a few more difficult areas to cool a car down, but not many, I figure. I posted this picture and info for the benefit of others, as you did with your detailed testing procedure.
Since the AC system works well enough to make you comfortable, perhaps that is all you or anyone else should care about. I also find that the system in my RDX cools me to a temperature that makes me comfortable.
However if we want to compare the cooling ability of one RDX to another, it has to be done under the same conditions. In post #46 I explained the conditions required, and said that a properly working system would have at least a 20 degree Celsius drop from the ambient temperature to the vent temperature. Your photo showed a 45'F vent temperature with a 95'F ambient temperature. That converts to almost a 28' Celsius drop. That sounds very impressive, but I know that is an impossible number if the conditions were set up according to my earlier post. For one thing I see that you had the temperature set at 72'F, which means that the fan was not at it's fastest speed. Even a poorly operating AC unit can cool down small volumes of air, but would do a lousy job when air volume increases. We also don't know if you were cooling down 95'F ambient air, or were you only cooling 75'F cabin air (i.e. re-circulation was on)
So for those who are happy with the way their system performs, they shouldn't look for problems, just be happy. For those that are complaining about the poor operation, you really need to test your system under the proper conditions and have some numeric results to actually confirm you have a problem and it's "more than a feeling".
BTW I posted yesterday that I switched the vent on the rear of the center console to blow cool air. Today's temperatures were almost identical to those of last week, and yet today is the first day that my blower slowed down to the 2nd lowest fan speed (estimating). Without the added heat from the console vent, I was finally able to reach my "set" temperature.
I do believe I mentioned that besides my own RDX, I have driven 3 loaners and the performance of the A/C is subpar in MY opinion. My Hyundai cools the cabin over 3x faster than my RDX. I will be 10 miles down the road and it is still not comfortable on a 100 degree day like yesterday.
Today, i left the RDX outside in the sun while wife and I eat pizza, then shopped at Costco...outside temp 97F. Over an hour, probably 1.5 hours (and many $$ spent). When I got in the car, the thermometer in the vent read 112F. I started the car up, backed out with out opening any windows or changing any settings (AUTO mode, 72 degrees, recirc on). Fan blowing at full speed. Before we were out of the parking lot, less than 2 minutes, the vent temp was at 55F, and before we got on the freeway (less than 1 mile) the vent temp was at 45 degrees. Within one more mile it was down to 42 degrees.
IF it wasn't cooling to my satisfaction, the forum would hear about it, as would my dealer.
I fell prey to the "extra value vibe" and bought a new '17 Hyundai Tucson Limited in Dec 2016.... Come June, it became obvious that It was not cooling. It was at the dealer over 5 or 6 times to get it resolved (and many wasted days and a lot of inconvenience). After numerous lies from service advisers, shop forum, service manager, and dealership general manager, I no longer own that car. Was it the incompetence of the dealer's service dept, or poor quality? I dunno. But at this point, I no longer care, and as long as they are the only Hyundai (and Mazda) dealership here, I will not even consider any of their products.
Again, I hope those of you who are experiencing unsatisfactory cooling, will have better luck with your Acura dealer than I had with the Hyundai/Mazda dealer. The RDX is a wonderful vehicle. No one should have a car that won't cool the interior.
I have never had a car with 'cooled/ventilated' seats before. I agree, they are pretty impressive. Between that in the summer, and the heated steering wheel in the winter, those are some nice extras.
07-02-2019, 02:36 PM
