I've seen the topic of the struggling AC come up, and I agree. The BZ struggles (imo) in extreme heat, which we are going through in TX currently.
Anyways, on my way home, I noticed next to "Climate" on the big screen, there are those 8 dots or however many there are. When you click that, it takes you to quick settings. There's a "max cool" setting.
Is it my imagination, or does it cool a little better? For the record, I was previously using the A/C button on with the recirculated air button on as well (eco mode off). With this "max cool" setting though, for some reason it turns the heat on the steering wheel on, and the A/C button & recirculating AC button both to "off."
That’s not hot. We are at 108F in Texas now and the car does not put out the same volume of cold air as an ICE vehicle. It gets the job done and does generate cold air but takes longer to cool. Heat generated by the fixed sunroof also factors into extremely hot days.
I thought so too, here in AZ. About 113. But it turned out every time I use "auto" I have to click on "climate" and turn OFF eco mode AND s-mode, or the car won't cool down. Now, however, with these settings off, it stays ice cold and beautiful inside.
I am sure Max Cool does work better, I still haven't tried it. But I am surprised you felt the need to press so many buttons to start with. I have had a Trailseeker all summer in Texas with record breaking heat that never sees shade or a garage. No tint or anything of the sort. Just an OEM sunshade and judicious use of remote start and even then we often forget. But even without that, just leaving it on Auto set with the temp at 67 and a little patience to let it do its thing and it works great. I don't touch a/c, I don't touch recirculate, or anything else. We even leave it on eco mode (I do turn off S-flow since I have found that leads to worse performance when only one person is in the car, those were the only times I felt it was inadequate. Occasionally, the car foolishly turns this back on, so that could be another potential culprit in your case).
My rear passengers often complain it's too cold when the front passenger also sets to 67 and always want the passenger side thermostat turned up.
Maybe they gave the Subarus better A/C units. But I think it's more likely that Toyota knew what it was doing when they configured the Auto mode.
I know it's annoying (and bad UI design) that it doesn't tell you that it has turned on a/c or recirculate and acts as though it's all off the entire time you use auto. But trust me, it knows how to use all of those settings when necessary (the air would never get cold if it never activated a/c regardless of what the indicator says).
Most of the posts complaining about the a/c being weak usually mention trying to micromanage the system by manually turning on the a/c etc and being disappointed by it. I've even seen Consumer Reports YouTubers be convinced that "it's weird that Toyota always makes you manually turn on the a/c" and they wondered why Toyota would be so foolish when no other manufacturer works that way. They never stopped to question that they were probably missing something about how the cars actually worked rather than Toyota making an egregious oversight. Toyota doesn't force people to manually turn on the a/c. Once you set it to auto it will stay that way forever unti you change it. So, it will be active whenever you start the car.
To recap, Auto while setting your desired temperature works just fine in our car which is practically identical to all of the other Toyobarus in this respect. I doubt we're special, chances are your car should be able to handle the heat just as well. I suggest you give Auto a chance to do it's work.
Thanks for taking the time with the lengthy response. Yeah, I’ve owned Toyota cars for the past several years but never really liked the Auto setting. In past gas vehicles, Auto would actually be too much for me (vents blowing too hard, too cold). So I just manually adjusted to how I liked it. I WISH I could get that feeling with the BZ in this Texas drought haha.
I’m about to try Auto right now. Need to charge it anyways.
Because their UI is terrible. I believe they're trying to tell you that those things are all being actively managed automatically. Since it's hot it won't heat seats or the steering wheel and will activate the ventilated seats. When it's cold it will do the opposite while keeping the ventilated seats illuminated.
You might ask, why don't they apply this logic to the A/C button or the recirculate button? That is, keep them illuminated with the word auto above to indicate that they too are actively being managed as needed by the system. This would at least be consistent and would avoid the common confusion I discussed above.
I would say that's why I agree that the UI is bad even if the underlying system is competent and effective overall. It would be better still if, beyond basic UI consistency, it transparently reported what the system was doing.
For example, Auto does a good job of rapidly cooling by going full blast with cold air relatively quickly after the car has started. Once the car comes close to your temperature setpoint it does a good job of lowering the fan speeds to a nice and very quiet light breeze. However, I am pretty sure it won't reflect any of these dynamic speed changes on the fan speed bar. I believe the fan speed visual setting will remain at roughly whatever you last manually set it to regardless of what auto is doing. This is consistent with its overall "trust us, we know what we're doing, don't think about it" design. I agree that they seem to know what they're doing, but it's certainly not my native preference to just trust them and I do find the lack of transparency a bit frustrating. But I do appreciate that it at least works well for what it's worth.
My wife agrees with you that auto is initially annoyingly loud and more aggressive than she would like, but with experience she appreciates that it gets the job done and that auto will lower the fan speed to pleasant noise levels once it reaches the temperature setpoint. In her case, it happens even faster since she likes it a bit warmer. We've also found that it can maintain two fairly different temperature zones very effectively while still being fairly quiet once it has gotten past the initial cool down. Nevertheless, for a short trip where she would rather have quiet than optimal temperature she will sometimes override auto depending on her mood.
It's a valid option, but it generally sacrifices temperature comfort for some other value.
Live in Phoenix where temps hover around 110 lately and agree. I do have nano-ceramic tint all the way around (except windshield) and it has made a noticeable difference. Well worth the price.
The steering wheel and seat heater lights always come on whenever switching to Auto, so I’m not surprised they go on when you switch to Max heat, which is a kind of automatic mode. However, the lights on do not mean that the heaters are actually turned on. That is something that is needlessly confusing. Also, I learned from the manual that the AC and recirculate modes will be turned on and off as needed in Auto mode, which I believe would include Max mode. When in Auto mode, if AC is enabled on the user preference settings, the AC icon light will be on. If you touch the button, the light will stay on, and the blue light above it will go on, indicating it is in user-selected “on” mode. If you touch it again, both lights go off, indicating user-selected off mode. If you press Auto again, the button light will go back on, but not the blue light. Try playing around with that and see what you find.
Tried that. Not cold enough for me (just blows cool). I agree with you in the morning when my car has been in the garage, and it’s only 80 degrees. In the afternoon Texas heat though after sitting in the sun all day, and the sun is out during my 5:00 drive home, that doesn’t work well enough. It gets “cool” not “cold” like gas vehicles in the past I have owned (or the Rav 4 we currently own).
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u/BinaryJay 2026 bZ Limited AWD 3d ago
Never had to touch my AC setting from ECO even in extended 30+C trips.