Jacket

I found a couple of older threads on this topic, but nothing too extensive. The Q7 air conditioning seems extremely under powered, and is pretty cumbersome to "crank it up" to full power. As a contrast, my Dad's BMW has a "max AC" button that you push to set the entire system on highest fan, recirc and coldest temp. I have not been able to find anything similar in the Q7, making it a 3 step process.

Has anyone found creative ways to improve the usability and coverage of the AC system?

AudiQ7Lady

I agree with you on this. Driving around town with a black interior is tough. I have to crank the AC up pretty high and turn the vents to face me, esp. the driver's side vent.

What I recently discovered is that the second row middle console vent is very strong....much stronger than up front.

The AC seems to function best when highway driving...

AMGM5S8

I also agree. The a/c is horrible. I live in South Florida and with the Pano roof I always have it at lowest setting. It is too noisy and does not cool it efficiently. This was my first summer with it and don't plan on keeping it for next.

Ctsearay

Yeah the A/C BLOWS and not in a good way. I'm really amazed that they would let this subpar system be sold to the public. It should have been a prototype. If anyone hears of anything please post it. Sorry AMG, being in fl really has to suck with crappy AC

DUTCH VanAtlanta

I live in Georgia with high temps and humidity. Never have had a problem. Took it through Death Valley back in April with temps very close to 100, and no problem there either.

I did have the sun roof tinted when new, and this made a very big difference in the heat load.

SoCalQ7TDI

No issues here either. We've averaged 100+ degress for the last couple weeks here in Southern Cal. and my AC system is blowing ice cold. If I turn counter clockwise past 60 it says "LO". Could that be the equivalent to "Max AC" on other cars?

Jacket

Spinning the dial to LO is part of the equation, and the system does respond by dialing up the fan. But many times you can still switch from "temp mode" to "fan mode" and still turn up the fan a couple more notches. To me there are just too many buttons and turns to achieve the result.

For those of you that say it works fine, do you have 2nd or 3rd row passengers that agree? With all the vents up front you can cool things quicker for the driver/passenger, but we drove 45 minutes a few weekends back and the 2nd and 3rd row passengers never stopped complaining. We had it on LO and 12 (or whatever the max fan speed is) for the entire trip and we never got "cold."

Jacket

Maybe I'll turn this into a "understanding and complaining about the Q7 HVAC" thread....

So now that we're being washed away here Boulder and the temps have dropped, my wife was trying to use the seat heaters. But we couldn't figure out how to just turn on the seat heaters and leave the rest of the climate control off. Is that possible?

Force-1

In my Q7 turning the seat cool/heat on, then turning the HVAC off leaves the seat cool/heat on. Worked the same on my 2011 Q7.

I really don't like that turning the seat cool/heat on also turns the HVAC on, forcing me to turn it off if I don't need it.

My S5 allows me to turn the seat cool/heat on without turning HVAC on.

Ctsearay

I'm headed in for Factory Service shortly. I'm gonna see if they have any answers.