Hot passenger compartment.

That big ass ball of hydrogen in the sky? Or are you saying hot air is coming out of the vents?

TalonTsi90 said:

That big ass ball of hydrogen in the sky? Or are you saying hot air is coming out of the vents?

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Nope not the big ass ball. It's almost as if the heat is coming up through the firewall. I've had the car over a pit and removed the tray underneath the engine bay. All the exhaust and engine shielding seems to be in place. I've been over the aircon/climate control system as well, but see nothing that's obviously wrong with any components.

bushbb1 said:

Nope not the big ass ball. It's almost as if the heat is coming up through the firewall. I've had the car over a pit and removed the tray underneath the engine bay. All the exhaust and engine shielding seems to be in place. I've been over the aircon/climate control system as well, but see nothing that's obviously wrong with any components.

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Mine gets got as well. I feel like it is the cooling system that is running into the cabin (heater core) that heats it even when I am not set to heating. The floor and tunnel get quite hot after some running. I am not entirely sure how the HVAC works but I feel like if I set the temp to cool it does not change anything unless I also turn on the fan to "set" it. Does setting the temp to cool actually close the coolant running into the heater core or does it only redirect the air flow away from the heater core? Other who have spent more time with the system may know. In general, there is a tremendous amount of heat that comes from the engine compartment in this car. I feel like if I do not want to be constantly heating I have to have cool ambient air on or the AC all the time.

Have your blender door checked. My old 6 would always blow air slightly above ambient if I wasn't running AC (only really noticeable when it was about 70-75 in the evening). At some point the AC was really weak, figured it was 10 years old so I recharged the AC system and over-pressurized giving myself no AC. Had an AC shop fix that, but they also found the blender door issue - didn't even require a new part, I think just physically cycling it fixed it. Unconditioned air blew fine after that.

DrFeelGood said:

Does setting the temp to cool actually close the coolant running into the heater core or does it only redirect the air flow away from the heater core? Other who have spent more time with the system may know. In general, there is a tremendous amount of heat that comes from the engine compartment in this car. I feel like if I do not want to be constantly heating I have to have cool ambient air on or the AC all the time.

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I'm not sure about the manual climate, but in the auto-climate, changing the temp moves the blend door. I do have to turn it "on" (fan control) to get it to actuate, then it stays in that position even when the fan is off. The heater core is always charged, there is no shutoff valve.

mitro6ual said:

I'm not sure about the manual climate, but in the auto-climate, changing the temp moves the blend door. I do have to turn it "on" (fan control) to get it to actuate, then it stays in that position even when the fan is off. The heater core is always charged, there is no shutoff valve.

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I am auto HVAC as well and that is what I suspected but was not certain.

TalonTsi90 said:

That big ass ball of hydrogen in the sky? Or are you saying hot air is coming out of the vents?

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"Big" is relative here lol. Big to us, not to other known balls of hydrogen.

BTW, its approaching winter in South Africa now, so its not that the OPs car is dealing with thermal radiation.
+1 on the heater core/blend door.
My Mazda5 was new to me at only 27000 miles and it pretty much always bled heat into the passenger cabin from the day I got it. Never investigated, but yeah, I agree that it can happen because it did to me.