ethan_424

My 2018 Q7 with 4 zone climate control has a peculiar issue with excessive AC fan noiise at high speeds. When the system is set to auto and fresh air intake at highway speeds, I get what seems to be excessive AC fan speed and what sounds like a strong crosswind is hitting the windshield. If I set it to recirculate the wind noise sound immediately goes away and the fan speed for the AC lowers significantly. This is driving me crazy on long trips. The fan keeps blowing on me and the car is louder than it should be from the fan / wind-sounding noise. I took the car in and they had it for several days and basically threw their hands up and said that it's normal. This can't be normal.

Does anyone else have this experience? Or does everyone's climate control when set in auto provide a simple, quiet, comfortable ride like an expensive luxury car should? Thoughts on how to resolve this?

Thanks.

Meyecul

It’s normal for the mkll Q7. We all had a thread discussion about this a couple years ago. Seems you found the main solution of using the recirculate button when at these highway speeds and using strong ac

Another thing I would do sometimes is turn up the auto climate temp by single degrees one at a time just until the fans slow down. Usually it does not require to many degrees higher and the car will still keep cooling. Then if after a bit you still want the cabin even colder start turning down in one or two degree increments. I believe the loud hard fan blowing is a result of too much variance in the current cabin temp vs the desired number you set on the dials. By choosing. A closer variable, it keeps the fans from going crazy.

ethan_424

It's particularly odd because I have it set at 74 most often and it has not gotten too hot out yet, so the cabin is quite cool. I don't understand why it is calling for such high fan speeds.

gsobol

Is the windshield exposed to the sun when that happens?

sickk23

Is there a way to turn off the rear but still run the two front zones on auto?

Corgiman

You can manually regulate the fan speed (at least with the 4 zone system).

sickk23

Then OP should turn off the rear and try that. I noticed most excessive fan noise come from the rear vents.

ethan_424

The fan speed and noise is present during sunny, warmer days (not hot yet here). It sounds like it is coming from the windshield and front vents, definitely not the rear of the car. I test drove a loaner car with an Audi service tech that had some vent noise coming from the rear as a result of some vents in the back being closed and the air being forced through the remaining open vents. That was much different.