Vents or Venting return to the good old days

[slodavid]

I live on the central coast of California and the weather here is pretty mild. In the old days of internal combustion cars I would always use the vent function to keep it comfortable in the car and not burn up any fuel heating or cooling the cockpit. How do I get that venting function back in my MME. I would like fresh UNconditioned air to flow into the cabin. What are the settings I need to set to get that function to happen?

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[ChrisO]

I live on the central coast of California and the weather here is pretty mild. In the old days of internal combustion cars I would always use the vent function to keep it comfortable in the car and not burn up any fuel heating or cooling the cockpit. How do I get that venting function back in my MME. I would like fresh UNconditioned air to flow into the cabin. What are the settings I need to set to get that function to happen?

There are many threads on this where there is conflicting reports that whether you can’t even keep the AC mode from coming at start up. Note that recirculating air is off by default, it is keeping that on that is harder.

I personally have been have had good luck turning it all off and it staying off with the power like button in the main climate control menu (select the button to the right of the volume control). But note that the moment you turn on the fan or touch Auto it will turn things back on.

It should also be noted that the AC mod doesn’t draw any significant amount of power especially when the temperature set is about what the current temperature is.

 

[Mach-Lee]

Set temp to LO, shut off A/C, manually adjust blower speed and vents.

 

[tntschiff]

Set temp to LO, shut off A/C, manually adjust blower speed and vents.

Yup, and you have to turn off the AC every time you start the car. At least the button for AC is on the main screen and "easy" to see it is on and touch to turn off. I have labels with "Turn off AC" everywhere to remind me.

I want old fashioned Vent Mode and this is the only way I have found to make it come close. I personally think this is an ISSUE Ford needs to address. But about half the people on the many threads on this forum think this behavior is just fine and by design, and basically say "just deal".

P.S. If you forget to turn the AC off, you will eventually notice because you will get COLD AIR blowing on you, and this happens even if the temperature in the car is BELOW 60!! The AC comes on ALL THE TIME...unless you completely turn off the environmental controls, but then no fan, no vents, so no VENT mode.

P.P.S. Supposedly not all cars do this. My 2021 MME never did turn on the AC all the time and it did Vent mode perfectly. But my 2025 MME always turns on the AC.

 

[RickMachE]

I think your recollection is incorrect, our 2022 turns on AC...

 

[Maquis]

My 2021 will not turn on the AC as long as I don’t use “Auto.”

 

[ChrisO]

Yup, and you have to turn off the AC every time you start the car. At least the button for AC is on the main screen and "easy" to see it is on and touch to turn off. I have labels with "Turn off AC" everywhere to remind me.

I want old fashioned Vent Mode and this is the only way I have found to make it come close. I personally think this is an ISSUE Ford needs to address. But about half the people on the many threads on this forum think this behavior is just fine and by design, and basically say "just deal".

P.S. If you forget to turn the AC off, you will eventually notice because you will get COLD AIR blowing on you, and this happens even if the temperature in the car is BELOW 60!! The AC comes on ALL THE TIME...unless you completely turn off the environmental controls, but then no fan, no vents, so no VENT mode.

P.P.S. Supposedly not all cars do this. My 2021 MME never did turn on the AC all the time and it did Vent mode perfectly. But my 2025 MME always turns on the AC.

On both my 2024 and 2025 the behavior is that if I turn everything off (with the fastest way being to go into the main climate controls and hit the off button and turn off the vented seats if desired) the AC/HEAT will stay off even when I shut off the car and then come back to it. But if I have the fan on at all the AC will come back on at startup. Note that turning the AC off and the fan off results in the same thing because the HEAT indicator doesn't matter in this case, but I just prefer the off button on the main climate screen. We basically ride in two modes, windows open or windows closed with AC (either cool or heat depending on the weather). We never have really wanted fans with the windows up.

I tried @Mach-Lee 's trick with setting to LO and that still resulted in the AC turning back on starting the car (if the fan is on at all).

And I'm definitely in the camp that believes these kinds of behaviors are bugs. The controls should stay where the user put them.

 

[Mach-Lee]

I tried @Mach-Lee 's trick with setting to LO and that still resulted in the AC turning back on starting the car (if the fan is on at all).

And I'm definitely in the camp that believes these kinds of behaviors are bugs. The controls should stay where the user put them.

Correct, A/C will not stay off between key cycles and must be cancelled each time the vehicle is driven, by design.

The engineers have a different view—“people are stupid”. They would get complaints from owners about their A/C not working, all because they turned it off last time they drove their car and forgot to turn it back on again. To avoid any complaints or potential missed functionality, A/C and heat automatically turns on every time the car started if the conditions would require it to meet the set temperature.

 

[ChrisO]

Correct, A/C will not stay off between key cycles and must be cancelled each time the vehicle is driven, by design.

The engineers have a different view—“people are stupid”. They would get complaints from owners about their A/C not working, all because they turned it off last time they drove their car and forgot to turn it back on again. To avoid any complaints or potential missed functionality, A/C and heat automatically turns on every time the car started if the conditions would require it to meet the set temperature.

So, instead they get all these complaints about it not doing what they told it to do.

BTW it isn't "good engineering practice" to ignore what people have set unless there is real problem with what they have set, which isn't true in this case.

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