2018 Remote start and Climate Control

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I'll double check, but the seats and steering wheel have a separate setting of either Auto or Off on my 2018 Platinum.

 

My 2017 does this exact same thing...I just gave up on using the remote start. If I need the car cool, I just leave it running and lock the doors with the keyfob.

 

I just checked, and I can have the seats and steering wheel on Auto with the climate control on Last Setting. Works great. I got in and the seats were on full speed AC mode.

 

Interesting. So you set it to "last setting" but besides the actual climate control, everything else remained on the auto setting? I will certainly have to try this.

 

Yes. There is a separate option in the IPC specifically for the seats and steering wheel.

 

So after reading this thread, I looked at the settings and changed everything to Auto for Remote start and now the A/C blows cold when I use the Remote start. So that is nice, as now we have triple digit temps.

 

So it's doing what it's supposed to do? Did auto not previously work for you?

 

So I had the Remote start set for "on the last setting" for the climate control and it would just blow hot air.

Now with it set to "auto" it blows cold air.

 

Oh gotcha, well good!

Does your cooled seats come on as well at full power? I swear that, just like messed up seat warmers, the cooled seats aren't coming on full blast unless I manually toggle to full power. I'm not sure entirely but sometimes it seems that if I manually toggle it, they get colder.

 

I don't have cooled seats, just heated so just wondering but if you have your setting on "auto" maybe it's not putting the cooled seats on full blast because it's sensing that it's not hot enough in the vehicle? I know for my remote start, which is set to auto for the climate control, doesn't put the heated seats on full blast unless it was setting outside on a cold winter day.

 

I don't have the cooled seats, so I am not much help. Sorry about that.

I will see what the headed seats do in the Winter time, but I seldom use the remote start in the winter, as the truck setting the garage.

 

Mine has this same issue. I’ve had several Fords with remote start including a Fusion currently and they all cool off the cabin rather quickly after remote start except this 2018 Explorer. It’s really frustrating. Remote Start is useless if it doesn’t cool off the cabin on a summer day...not to mention the Ford Pass app that I love so much.


With the AUTO setting it will not even turn on the rear fans, the front is all that blows and it’s not very cool. With the LAST setting it turns on the rear fans but it’s like the front and is not cool enough. Even if that were to work it’s useless because my other children in the back get cold while driving and we have to turn it to low...if we forget to turn it back on high when we exit we have defeated the purpose...which would happen frequently before I realized it wasn’t cooling anyway.


This is my wife’s daily driver and she just had our daughter. I wanted it to be comfortable for her getting into it to leave work while she was pregnant. Being we live in Georgia it’s typically nasty hot and humid. I showed it to the local dealer and they were very understanding and tried to help but I think it’s out of their hands because it’s a design/software problem.

I noticed when driving, coming to a stop, sitting at a light or drive thru that the AC doesn’t work as cool as when driving. I know that is typical with most cars because the compressor and engine rpm relation but this Explorer seems to be the worst at this that I have ever seen. It’s not turning the AC all the way off but it’s probably a 75-90% reduction in cool temp. The fan doesn’t change speed but you can feel the temp rise.


I hope there is a fix from Ford soon or a forscan setting changes I can try. I have experience with that on a Focus ST I once had.

 

FYI I just found this on the interwebs

Air Conditioning (A/C) Defaults To Heat And Defrost During Remote Start - 2016-2018 Ford Explorer

 

I also found out the rear AC is not syncing with the front AC. According to the owners manual if you select AUTO the rear should work as one unit with the front AC. I tried testing this and just as I suspected, it didn’t. My test was changing the settings for the rear to the opposite of the front. Then pressing AUTO on the front. Nothing happened. Then I turned the whole system off. It did however shut off both. However, when I turn the system back on, the rear will not come on while the front does. Going to the sync screen I can see the rear is showing it is still off. I manually have to turn the rear on but it’s still at the last (opposite) setting from the front

 

So is this something the dealer can do? I will have to try the syncing of the front and rear later when I get off work.

 

I talked to my dealer and they said it’s an easy and quick fix. They just run a update.

 

So I did remote start with the phone app on my 2017 and it definitely cooled my car down after running for 5 minutes or so.

 

I have been using the remote start and the A/C seems to be staying on while in remote start mode. However, the rear A/C does nothing.