Help me understand my car's climate control system!

[dirty hippie]

Okay, I think I may finally be close to understanding the no heat issue.

Los Angeles weather has been exceptionally hot this week, 90-100F. Seeing that the car's temp dial has settings from low 65 to max 89, if my car's interior ambient temp is around 90F and I set the temp dial to max 89, is it true then that the vents will not blow hot air because the temp sensor in the dash senses that the interior is above 89F and therefore will try to cool it by blowing cool air?

I've noticed that the AC will kick in even when I have the dial set in the red zone. Is this because of the climate control trying to set the interior temperature to the dialed number?

When I checked the heating in the moring, I got heat from the vents. Later after work when it was in the high 80s or low to mid 90s, vents would not blow heat no matter if the dial is et to max 89.

Is this the climate control at work? I thought there was a manual function if you press OFF and set the fan speed.

[faxe]

A lot of info is here:

F.A.Q.: Climate Control

[Cobb]

The i2 mixes heat with the air and used the ac to regulate the humidity on the auto setting.

Basically to most efficient way is to set it to low and used the blower speed to regulate temp with it on recycle mode. This way the ac cycles off more than on as it builds up too much pressure on the high side before the blower can remove it cooling the cabin.

I find in the winter auto feature works best for fuel economy and fogging on the windows. Inthe summer it wasted fuel economy.