A/C intermittently blows hot outside air

[HereWeGo]

I've done two long road trips and noticed on both that about once an hour the A/C will blow hot outside air for about a minute, then return to normal operation. I use Auto mode and recirculate is off. Recirculate off should allow a little outside air at all times, not a blast of outside air once an hour. Anyone else experience this?

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[Arisdocjk]

I have had 3 jl’s and a jt and they all have done this. Must be normal.

 

[SpeedNeed]

Has happened to me too, I’m also wondering what’s going on there.

 

[SubiRubi]

In auto mode It's compensating for humidity from what I'm told.. It's normal.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

In auto mode It's compensating for humidity from what I'm told.. It's normal.

No, there's other threads covering this. There's a TSB for it, at least for the 2020 models.
Mine did it twice on long trips (several hours) but never on trips under an hour.
After our return from Colorado Springs last summer and it did it for the first time (that I noticed anyway) I found the TSB - and told the dealer and they did a flash update.
It changed it - it resolved that, but I didn't like how it blew cold air out the dash vents when it was 40 out and the sun was shining and it thought we were getting hot.

Anyway, I don't know if the TSB covers the 2021 model year or not, it's in the house on my server there and my shop chromebook can't get to that side of the router so I can't access it from here.
There are other threads on this dating back a couple of years, some of them long, deep and many dozens of posts. It's been discussed until the cows came home and for a while, I thought they were home, but apparently not LOL

 

[Mr._Bill]

It's part of the programming, happens about every 45 minutes under continuous operation. It opens the outside air flap to let in fresh air.

 

[@californiajeeping]

It's part of the programming, happens about every 45 minutes under continuous operation. It opens the outside air flap to let in fresh air.

Yep. It allows fresh air in to compensate for humidity and to keep from icing up. My 2015 JK did not do this and would get swamp assey in high humid areas. I rented a 2017 JK in Hawaii and it filled with water and iced up on a long 2 hour drive around the island.

JT/JL's wont do that.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

It's part of the programming, happens about every 45 minutes under continuous operation. It opens the outside air flap to let in fresh air.

No, it's not - it's not supposed to act that way.

So no one believes me that there's a TSB or a fix?

Yep. It allows fresh air in to compensate for humidity and to keep from icing up. My 2015 JK did not do this and would get swamp assey in high humid areas. I rented a 2017 JK in Hawaii and it filled with water and iced up on a long 2 hour drive around the island.

JT/JL's wont do that.

It's not supposed to act like that. Do some searching for the complaints and for the fix here. I and others have posted it all before.
If it acts like that, it's wrong.

The compressor cycles and handles evaporator freeze prevention in other ways.

There are dozens if not hundreds of posts and the TSB has been posted before - and several forum members had theirs fixed like I did.
I had mine flashed and it resolved it.
If there were going to be issues after the fix, I'd have had them because last year Iowa set a dew point record with 100% humidity and a dew point of 91 degrees (or was that 92 degrees)

Here's the TSB -

 

[aixguru]

I had the dealer apply this TSB to my 2020 Rubicon. The default behavior was really annoying becoming almost uncomfortable during the more humid Florida months.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

I had the dealer apply this TSB to my 2020 Rubicon. The default behavior was really annoying becoming almost uncomfortable during the more humid Florida months.

Mine never did that again.
It did act a bit differently in other ways, but I soon got used it that part.

 

[Mr._Bill]

No, it's not - it's not supposed to act that way.

So no one believes me that there's a TSB or a fix?



It's not supposed to act like that. Do some searching for the complaints and for the fix here. I and others have posted it all before.
If it acts like that, it's wrong.

The compressor cycles and handles evaporator freeze prevention in other ways.

There are dozens if not hundreds of posts and the TSB has been posted before - and several forum members had theirs fixed like I did.
I had mine flashed and it resolved it.
If there were going to be issues after the fix, I'd have had them because last year Iowa set a dew point record with 100% humidity and a dew point of 91 degrees (or was that 92 degrees)

Here's the TSB -

It may not supposed to be that way, but it is part of the programming unless you have the TSB performed to change it. Due to complaints about the odd behavior after the TSB, particularly yours, I did not have it done. I live with it, since it's just a minor annoyance.

 

[Hootbro]

Get the TSB done or live with it. For the longest time, FCA said it was normal and expected operation and that may have been true to some extent, but obviously they fielded enough complaints to re-look at it and issue the TSB @ShadowsPapa mentioned.

FWIW, my 6/21 build Willys did not have this issue so the update was probably prior to that unless the dealership updated it before delivery to me.

 

[JTDay]

My 2022 does it. Who wouldn't want some fresh air dumped into the cabin periodically? I use recirc pretty much exclusively though so maybe that's why I don't have a complaint with it.

 

[sharpsicle]

My 2022 does it. Who wouldn't want some fresh air dumped into the cabin periodically? I use recirc pretty much exclusively though so maybe that's why I don't have a complaint with it.

Nobody wants it "dumped in" en masse like these things are doing. Fresh air needs to be introduced in a controlled manner. The problem here is that it's just opening up entirely and flooding your climate controlled cab with massive amounts of uncontrolled air.

 

[JTDay]

Sorry, but it seems pretty benign to me. It does it, it's odd, and 5 seconds later it's relegated to the past until the next time it does it. I've driven 10k miles and it's done it maybe 5 times. I can understand how others perceive it differently though. Thankfully I don't drive by any cow pastures or Kraft paper mills regularly..

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