Hello. I know questions have been asked about this before but cannot find any that link to my specific problem (although it may be a symptom of a common issue). I bought my MK4 71 plate vrs estate back in January and love it. It's been disgustingly winterish up til now so hadn't noticed this before now.

 

Today I wanted to set my climate to 17 degrees so it would be nice and cool without being freezing cold. It seems to blow warm air even with the air conditioning on right down to 16 degrees. If I then go down one more to 'lo' it suddenly becomes freezing cold as you would expect. This happens when I select any of the fan directions and strengths and doesn't seem to make a difference if air recirculation is on or off. If I put it on 16 and 'auto' nothing seems to happen and I can't feel any air pushing from any of the vents. Anyone have experience of this? Is there any kind of quick fix? I've seen the MK3 you could perform a kind of manual reset but can't find anything for the MK4. 

Welcome.

 

17*oC is not cold, not even cool, i have my home set to that just now. 

 

?

What was the ambient / outside temperature?

 

It is trying to get the interior to the temperature asked for. 

Did you use a thermometer to see what the cars interior temperature was actually at? 

Edited 11 February, 20251 yr by Ootohere

No, Im not sure what the interior temp was at the time. Outside temp was about 5 degrees. Just seemed strange that any temp I chose from 20 down to 16 resulted in the same warm air being blown into the cabin. My 19 plate Octavia would happily blow cool air into the cabin around 16 or 17 degrees with no big jump from 16 to 'lo' as seems to be the case with my new vehicle. 

I think LOW is only 15*oC.

 

If you asked for 17*oC inside and outside and inside the car if not parked in the sun was 5*oC then it needs to be putting heat into the interior.

It is a Skoda / VW Group car, the heating and cooling systems THEY FIT (edit) seem to get worse as the years pass. 

Edited 11 February, 20251 yr by Ootohere

Mine is exactly the same, lo = very cold, all other temps are varying degrees of warm! 

You British people. 😁 My winter temp is always set between 21 and 24 and always on auto. 😅 In the summer it is between 20 and 22. 

Edited 11 February, 20251 yr by TheUltraRunner

@TheUltraRunner  Maybe you mean British people. 

30 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

@TheUltraRunner  Maybe you mean British people. 

Corrected. Sorry for my bad language. 

I understand the comments about the MK4 heating/Aircon being a bit odd; if it's really hot outside and the you pop the Aircon on and temp to 17-19 degrees it's fine. Any other temp it just appeared fairly random in 3 years of ownership. MK4.5 clima control appears to work a lot better. And I think the seats warm up faster

Yes it's all a bit frustrating really. All I want is a bit of old fashioned cool (not arctic tundra) air to gently blow through as I drive home from the gym but that option has been denied to me in the name of being 'smart'. 

I just set my climates control to 22ºC all year round pretty much.  You could try Turing the air con off and just have the fan on low and blowing in some cool air from the outside - go all old school?

Same here, I leave mine to 22c auto year round and never have an issue. If the ambient & car interior temps are hotter, it rapidly cools down to the set temp i.e. gets there within 2-3 mins. As always, mine did so this morning with 35c ambient and hotter still in the parked car. If those in cooler climes are setting to 16c when ambient temps are much lower, then the clima will heat up until 16c is reached as it's designed to do. There's nothing quirky with the Mk4 clima in my opinion, in fact I think it works brilliantly.

 

As an aside, these cars (and all VAG cars AFAIK) are built with either a 'Cool' or 'Tropical' specification. The factory data sheet will show either code 0Y2 (Tropical) or 0Y3 (Cool) according to the car's import climate. I know mine is Mine 0Y2 Tropical and I imagine northern European countries would be set to Cool. Having said that, I don't think it has anything to do with the Clima calibration, I believe it designates the coolant type i.e. lower freezing point temp in Cool climate vehicles and possibly a higher boiling point in warm climates. Happy to stand corrected on it, but that's what I've been able to discover about the differences so far. 

 

  

It's annoying that it has 'smart' clima whereby you can elect to cool your feet. If the temp is set to 16 (which would have blown cool air in my MK3) it blows warm air on to your feet. I hate to sound like a technophobe but these newer, all access via a welded on iPad, control systems are not for me.

11 hours ago, jimtheslim said:

It's annoying that it has 'smart' clima whereby you can elect to cool your feet. If the temp is set to 16 (which would have blown cool air in my MK3) it blows warm air on to your feet. I hate to sound like a technophobe but these newer, all access via a welded on iPad, control systems are not for me.

Yes, it has the Smart Clima, but you can select 'Classic' for those non-Smart controls.

 

Similar to what others have said, I set mine to 21 or 22 all year; rarely anything different - it's best 'Set it and Forget it' clima I've come across in a car.

Hampshire UK and Australia known for the similar climates.

 

Cooling car interior down to 21-22 *oC or Heating it to that from not very cold temps might be a 10 *oC temperature change.

 

The OP was heating the interior from about 5*oC to mid teens. 

'Nice and cool but not too cool.'

 

He was not asking for 21-22 *oC inside the car 

32 minutes ago, Ootohere said:

Hampshire UK and Australia known for the similar climates.

 

Cooling car interior down to 21-22 *oC or Heating it to that from not very cold temps might be a 10 *oC temperature change.

 

The OP was heating the interior from about 5*oC to mid teens. 

'Nice and cool but not too cool.'

 

He was not asking for 21-22 *oC inside the car 

I thought the OP was surprised that the car blew warm air when he set it to 17°C but it was 5°C outside.  Myself and others pointed out the challenges with that approach. 

3 hours ago, Ootohere said:

Hampshire UK and Australia known for the similar climates.

 

Cooling car interior down to 21-22 *oC or Heating it to that from not very cold temps might be a 10 *oC temperature change.

 

The OP was heating the interior from about 5*oC to mid teens. 

'Nice and cool but not too cool.'

 

He was not asking for 21-22 *oC inside the car 

🙄 It's not too hard to follow, with the clima you get what you set, it will either warm up or cool down to the temp you set. If it's only 5c outside, of course it will blow warm to reach mid teens. BTW, this continent has many climates ranging from Alpine to Tropical, but I'm sure you knew that. Somewhere here we have one very similar to Hampshire!

4 hours ago, Ootohere said:

Hampshire UK and Australia known for the similar climates.

 

😉

 

47 minutes ago, SouthernComfort said:

BTW, this continent has many climates ranging from Alpine to Tropical, but I'm sure you knew that. Somewhere here we have one very similar to Hampshire!

 

I'm sure 6C would be a shock in most of Australia this time of year 😉

 

That aside, earlier this evening I had a fiddle...

• 6C outside
• set passenger side to 22C
• set driver side to 16C
• Clima on Auto
• my feet got cold; Mrs Steve's feet nice and toasty.

In my car, the Clima system seems to behave as expected, so maybe @jimtheslim's car has an issue

4 minutes ago, SteveTheElder said:

😉

 

 

I'm sure 6C would be a shock in most of Australia this time of year 😉

 

That aside, earlier this evening I had a fiddle...

• 6C outside
• set passenger side to 22C
• set driver side to 16C
• Clima on Auto
• my feet got cold; Mrs Steve's feet nice and toasty.

In my car, the Clima system seems to behave as expected, so maybe @jimtheslim's car has an issue

 

I think you might be right, a possible problem going on there.

 

Certainly would be a shock if we had 6c during summer 🥶🥶. Not unheard of in the southern regions in mid winter though, very early am or late pm

Anyone know where the car measures the temperature from? It was about 5 degrees outside but much warmer inside, especially once I'd got going. Just give me a good old fashioned dial with red to blue gradient on it any day of the week. 

3 hours ago, jimtheslim said:

Anyone know where the car measures the temperature from? It was about 5 degrees outside but much warmer inside, especially once I'd got going. Just give me a good old fashioned dial with red to blue gradient on it any day of the week. 

Haven’t driven a car with a dial like that for 30 years. Climate control in a car is a long solved issue. 

It is amazing, not.

You get in a cold car and want to heat it up and it blows hot air in.    

Then you ask for a cool temp and it puts in cold air. 

 

It is nice in an EV.  Cold car, cold air and ask for heat and without an engine even running you get a 2 kW fan heater blowing air into the car. 

You can even have dials with a temperature reading on them. 

 

 

 

Edited 13 February, 20251 yr by Ootohere

Maybe I didn't make this clear. I'm taking it off auto and selecting a fan speed and a temp such as 16 or 17 degrees. In my old Skoda Octavia and my wife's 20 plate karoq (which had the same dials), this resulted in cool air blowing through regardless of the outside temperature. On my new octavia when I do this it blows warm/hot air unless I select 'lo'. In any case it seems I've missed the point of new technology making the decisions for me in the name of 'smart technology '. 

On 14/02/2025 at 09:15, jimtheslim said:

Maybe I didn't make this clear. I'm taking it off auto and selecting a fan speed and a temp such as 16 or 17 degrees. In my old Skoda Octavia and my wife's 20 plate karoq (which had the same dials), this resulted in cool air blowing through regardless of the outside temperature. On my new octavia when I do this it blows warm/hot air unless I select 'lo'. In any case it seems I've missed the point of new technology making the decisions for me in the name of 'smart technology '. 

Can’t you just hit the fresh air button?

 

if you have a temp selected higher than the ambient temperature then that it is always going to result in warm air coming in auto or not. Compressor on or not.  The fresh air is just that, bring in outside air unaltered in temp

Edited 15 February, 20251 yr by whippersnapper

& take a digital thermometer into the car and see at each seat or footwell or centre of the cabin the interiors actual temperature.

That is how you know if things work.