No cool air through my vents?
 

Not talking about A/C. My A/C does suck, but searched the forum enough to see that isn't exactly a new complaint. With the weather now I am definitely wishing it didn't suck. Anyway...

What I am wondering about is with the A/C off. Say at night when the air outside has cooled off but inside the car is still pretty warm. There should be an option to pretty much pull air from outside and through the vents, right? Should feel pretty much like sticking your hand out the window. It seems like I can't get close to that. Feels like the air is coming across the engine and heating up before it ever gets to me.

I have messed around with the settings. I don't have "auto" on because that will just blast the A/C. I have tried playing with the air recirculation options. I have the temp set to "Lo". No luck.

Any ideas?

try this, ....
 

1) switch to econ
2) select vents
3) adjust temp down all the way
4) then turn fan down to off

this should let outside air come through vents

even after the outside air has cooled from the day, if your under hood temps are such that your firewall area is very hot, it is unavoidable that it would exchange some small amount of heat to the flow, because the tubing is hot. welcome to life with a turbo.

Thanks, I'll give it a try next time...
 

I can understand some heatup from the engine, this just seemed way too much.

Temp on lo, econ button lit, recirculate off, fan on
 

That's as cool as you're gonna get it without the AC. Keeping the fan on at least a little bit helps prevent engine compartment heat from making the air too warm.

I agree, Its impossible to get outside ambient temperatures through the vent.
 

but since I like it cool, I tend to use the AC quite a bit which negates the previous.

I do wonder why its not possible though.

As for how cold the AC gets, well, i have had much colder in other cars but the A3 gets the best fuel economy Ive ever had so I figure its a good trade off. A more powerful AC would take more from the engine to run.

Not impossible at all. Boki just explained it. Auto-Econ-Temp to LO-Fan to taste.

no fan = no air. useless.