When the car is cold, and I start it up, the heating system comes on full blast blowing cold air in the car. Is this the way it should work or should the system stay off until the coolant is warm enough to put heat in the car? It has the automatic climate control type system in it. It has had a new control head unit put in the heating A/C system and the dealer service/Hundai warranty has been poor with their service. Seems they go the extra mile to avoid doing anything under the warranty.

 

Well, Thats not really correct. The climate control will work regardless of engine temp. It will however modify its working statagy depending on many factors such as engine temp, ambient temp, sun load on the windshield and humidity. The computor that controls the climate control will automatically adjust based on these inputs. There is a function called cold air prevention that will reduce blower speed and mode door to prevent cold air from blowing thought he vents when certain conditions are met. Low humidity will direct air to the floor and higher humidity will direct air to the defrost. This function only takes place when temps are below 41 degrees and then will change blower and mode depending on how far below 41 degrees and other inputs. The actual tables that the computor uses are know only to the guy who built the system I think, as it is very hard to determain what should happen, and when, without a fairly exotic weather station. Parking in a semi warm garage throws a whole new loop into the system. The best thing to do would be to visit your dealer and ask him to demonstrate the systems in some other cars and if yours is anywhere close we can assume it is operating normally.