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Heater/AC blowing hot air at 60 or higher

ucijeepguy

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Chiming in as well. This is an issue on my JT as well. It's really too hot to use anything above 70f on manual mode. If that's too warm and I want cooler the only way I can actually get cold air is to turn it all the way to low, 60f or so, then slowly work my way up until i get to a decent temperature. My old vehicles used to be set around 72/73f, but now most I can do is 68 because this HVAC system sucks. Then to get my wife to understand how to set it because looking at the screen it says 68 and she thinks its going to be cold. The system does not work right. and before Jeepcares asks if I've taken it in, no, I have not. There is no bulletin, and I don't have time to wait around for them to tell me "Yup, this sucks, but nothing we can do about it!"
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Doolin64

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Count me in with this issue on JT Rubicon. In my past vehicles, I'd set the temp and leave it at that. Only in extreme cold or extreme heat would I need to fluctuate off of my intended temp. When this heater barfs hot air it is hot! Pretty much need to turn the heat down so far that it begins to get cold. I haven't used a/c yet, but I'm not expecting anything different.
 

BajaDrifter

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We've purchased 7 new vehicles since 1978 and none until my 8th, the Gladiator, had AC issues. I figured this is one thing the Auto industry had perfected. You always hear of issues with new engines or transmissions, but AC units? Come on! How do you mess up an AC system these days? Some young Turk engineer trying to reinvent the wheel over there? Or an old boozed up engineer need rehab? An executive needs to be canned who oversees this. What's going on FCA? What are you doing to the Jeep name?
 

glillygrfx

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UPDATE! Weather has warmed up nicely here in Houston. Had roof off, doors on on a cool morning on my way in to work (45 min. commute) and noticed it blows ice cold when set in the 80's. Same issue just reversed. If I click to "HI", it goes to Hot Lava, ..have to mess with it up and down to finally get it to find a "warm". I wonder if FCA will ever recognize there is an issue. I just keep waiting on that TSB. I still love my Jeep, but damn, c'mon man!
 

TheITGuy

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On the dual zone climate control system, the temperature you set is the desired CABIN temperature, regardless of whether the system is in auto or "manual" mode. With the exception of high and low, there is no manual control of the blend door. If you set the temperature to 70° and the cabin is warmer than that, the system will blow cold air to cool the cabin down. If it is cooler, it will blow hot air to warm it up. Once that cabin temperature is reached, the system will then alternate between blowing warm or cool air to maintain the set temperature. This is how the digital climate control has worked on every vehicle I've owned since my '96 Buick Park Avenue Ultra. This is how it works in my in-law's '19 Grand Cherokee with the 8.4" U-connect 4. This is how it worked in Gladiator Overland I test drove.
 

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BajaDrifter

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On the dual zone climate control system, the temperature you set is the desired CABIN temperature, regardless of whether the system is in auto or "manual" mode. With the exception of high and low, there is no manual control of the blend door. If you set the temperature to 70° and the cabin is warmer than that, the system will blow cold air to cool the cabin down. If it is cooler, it will blow hot air to warm it up. Once that cabin temperature is reached, the system will then alternate between blowing warm or cool air to maintain the set temperature. This is how the digital climate control has worked on every vehicle I've owned since my '96 Buick Park Avenue Ultra. This is how it works in my in-law's '19 Grand Cherokee with the 8.4" U-connect 4. This is how it worked in Gladiator Overland I test drove.
That's how it should work. Thank you for that, but how about when the CABIN is hot as hell and you turn on the AC for cool air as the temperature is set for 70 or lower and it blows out at you hotter than hell? That's our complaint.
 

TheITGuy

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That's how it should work. Thank you for that, but how about when the CABIN is hot as hell and you turn on the AC for cool air as the temperature is set for 70 or lower and it blows out at you hotter than hell? That's our complaint.
Depends on how long it's blowing hot air. It takes a minute or two for the A/C compressor to spin up, chill the coolant, and push the warm stagnant air out of the vents. My Ridgeline waits a few minutes before turning the fan speed up to reduce the amount of hot air that's blown into the cabin, but my in-law's Grand Cherokee does not. Now, if yours blows hot air long than this, then I'd get it looked at.
 

glillygrfx

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Depends on how long it's blowing hot air. It takes a minute or two for the A/C compressor to spin up, chill the coolant, and push the warm stagnant air out of the vents. My Ridgeline waits a few minutes before turning the fan speed up to reduce the amount of hot air that's blown into the cabin, but my in-law's Grand Cherokee does not. Now, if yours blows hot air long than this, then I'd get it looked at.
There wouldn't be this many people having issues if this was the case. I've over 20 vehicles in my 32 years of driving, never had I come across an HVAC system in a vehicle that sucked like this.
 

BajaDrifter

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Depends on how long it's blowing hot air. It takes a minute or two for the A/C compressor to spin up, chill the coolant, and push the warm stagnant air out of the vents. My Ridgeline waits a few minutes before turning the fan speed up to reduce the amount of hot air that's blown into the cabin, but my in-law's Grand Cherokee does not. Now, if yours blows hot air long than this, then I'd get it looked at.
None of my cars since 1971 ever took more than several seconds for cool air to come out. This thing blasts hot air like a furnace for an eternity and then when finally cold it's like freezer. You need to be a magician to figure out how to adjust it. Read back to the beginning of this thread, FCA isn't acknowledging anything is wrong with the AC. Dealers are no help either.
 

TheITGuy

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Have you checked to see how long it takes the A/C clutch to engage? Could be a hardware or software issue causing it not to kick in right away.
 

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FL Handle Guy

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It must be tied to the outside temp too somehow. If it's 68 outside and I have it set to 70 with an interior ambient of 75 it will blow hot air. But if I set it to 68 it will be perfect and then after 10 minutes I can set it to 70 interior and it will be comfortably blowing cool air.

The trick I have learned is if I like the temp it is inside and it is trying to melt me with its dragon breath I drop the set temp down a couple degrees at a time until it starts blowing out of the dash vents instead of the feet. It's a pain and only works with auto but it's something.

My last two vehicles were easy. Set to 72 degrees and never adjust it again. The toyota and the vw were perfect. I don't care what the outside temp is, read the inside temp and make it what I set it to.

Or possibly the interior ambient temperature isn't updated as frequently as it should? Perhaps the air pickup for the temperature probe is heat soaked or buried back in the dash? My 4runner had a 1" duct that ran from the the face of the dash and that was how it read the interior ambient temp set itself. If I forgot to hook it back up while working on something behind the dash it would be all wonky until about 20 minutes into the drive. I will have to look closer at the dash and see if the jeep has one.

I know the outside temp can be off by 5 or more degrees. If you park it when it's hot out and get in when it's cold the next time it sometimes reads the hot temp for several minutes.
 

NC_Overland

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The auto temp control sucks in my Overland too. I'm also used to getting the temperature somewhere between 70 and 72 and never having to touch it regardless of the outside temperature. I let to do its own thing. I've had countless vehicles with auto temperature control and they all worked like that and functioned well. On my Gladiator, it has to be hot or cold outside for it to work correctly. If the outside temp is within 10 degrees of what I have the inside temp set at, it doesn't really do much at all and its stuffy and hot inside. Even if its 70 degrees outside and I get in my jeep and its hot inside from sitting in the sun all day, it doesn't do anything. I have to use the manual mode a lot lately with the mild temperatures this time of year.
 

Nurse K

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My Overland does this blast of hot, steamy air while the ac is set to 68. It happens on my 3.5 hour trip to the Pamlico Sound in NC every time. What is so interesting is you can now set your watch to it. We are so accustomed to it that we know every mile marker along the way where the 2 minute blast will occur. Hot air for a couple minutes then back to normal a/c. Seems to happen at 1 hour intervals for us so I’m not sure how the dealer would recreate this for me unless they drove it for over an hour. I feel like there will be a tsb at some point so I will have them address it at that time.
 

khokhonutt

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My Overland does this blast of hot, steamy air while the ac is set to 68. It happens on my 3.5 hour trip to the Pamlico Sound in NC every time. What is so interesting is you can now set your watch to it. We are so accustomed to it that we know every mile marker along the way where the 2 minute blast will occur. Hot air for a couple minutes then back to normal a/c. Seems to happen at 1 hour intervals for us so I’m not sure how the dealer would recreate this for me unless they drove it for over an hour. I feel like there will be a tsb at some point so I will have them address it at that time.
We've noticed this exact same behavior, in addition to the other stuff in this thread. Same deal we first noticed on a trip to Texas. It doesn't seem like the cold air stops blowing, but every hour it seems like the truck dumps a bucket of humid swamp ass in the cabin.
 

ShadowsPapa

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My Overland does this blast of hot, steamy air while the ac is set to 68. It happens on my 3.5 hour trip to the Pamlico Sound in NC every time. What is so interesting is you can now set your watch to it. We are so accustomed to it that we know every mile marker along the way where the 2 minute blast will occur. Hot air for a couple minutes then back to normal a/c. Seems to happen at 1 hour intervals for us so I’m not sure how the dealer would recreate this for me unless they drove it for over an hour. I feel like there will be a tsb at some point so I will have them address it at that time.
Then you and NC have a problem with your trucks. The only thing I can figure is that like with HEAT PUMPS, they reverse cycle every so often to THAW or DEFROST the evaporator. I wonder if these trucks do that? Mine never has, not that I've ever felt.
It doesn't always cool down like my wife wants, but it does reach temp and keep it there, so you notice very little air coming out after a while. But we've never had HOT air blow out.
So - do these have a defrost mode to melt the frost off the evaporator in really humid conditions?
I do like I did with my Chevy - I hit auto, set the temp and never touch it again. My wife will change it, but I switch it back to auto as I hate the fan on HIGH blasting at me.

When my truck sits out in the sun and it gets to 100 inside (a guess) I note when I start it the fan is on high and it's in a max cool mode until the edge is taken off then the fan slows in steps, and it then works to get the temp stabilized.
So contrary to what NC_Overland is saying, mine DOES hit high and cool things down at least to take the edge off.

Some folks seem to have HVAC that operates differently than mine - or else I'm used to the auto mode in my Chevy because this one works from what I can remember, almost identically to my Chevy and I liked it. Perfect, no, but very nice - nice enough I leave it on auto year 'round.
Maybe this is like the steering gear - many have fine HVAC, some have malfunctioning HVAC and some have "not working like it should but not totally messed up" HVAC.
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