vent system always comes on to the highest fan speed.

This is really annoying. Everytime I turn on the vent system it's always blasting on full. Is there any way to change this?

Also annoyed that the only way to get fresh air is with the fan on period. Wish it would just allow air flow from outside as other cars I have owned did.

This bugged me as well - I find that if I switch to climate on the central display and then hit the minus button on the screen for fan speed it comes on at the low rate first. There may be more nuances to this such as first hitting the low fan speed button on the manual interface instead, but I have just not tried that yet. I also wish we could get external air with no fan speed but have not found a way yet. The best we have seen there is lowest temp setting + no AC + lowest fan speed. This seems to not impact the full estimated range.

Totally agree, plus a) the voice commands are nearly unusable when the fan is blasting and b) even if the fan is lower than high speed, the voice commands tend to hear "climate fan decrease" as the similar sounding "climate (…) degrees." And then it asks and asks "do you mean 70 degrees" or "say degrees" or whatever. Not a lot of thought went into picking those commands... "down/up" or "higher/lower" or "stronger/weaker" would have worked much better.

I just toggle back and forth between blasting on high, and "climate off." It's not enjoyable, but it's hands free.

also, have you noticed your battery life goes down by about 10 miles simply by turning on the fan (no heater or AC). There has to be an option of just running the fan and not draining that much battery as the heater on 80 degrees or a full blast AC in the middle of the summer.

The work-around is to use the "lower fan speed" button to turn on the system.

I have written to Ford suggesting that they fix this so the climate settings remain unchanged though a power off.

I have also suggested that there be an "Econ" mode that allows the fan to be on without trying to impart any temperature change to the incoming air. The work-around is to turn the AC off, set the temperature to LO, and the fan to minimum. The minimum fan setting is still too high so I usually point it to the floor too.

Maybe if enough other Focus Owners register the same requests, it might actually happen. Wishful thinking I know.

I think setting the temperature knob to LO provides the "vent" feature you want as an "ECON" mode, JimB, by admitting outside air with no heating or cooling. Then the only energy consumed is for the fan itself, which the Accessories display says is about 0.1-0.3 kW depending on speed (and it shows up as an "Other" rather than "Climate" load).

Could you please describe how you "use the 'lower fan speed' button to turn on the system"?

All I've found is that so long as MaxDefrost is off (because it locks on at maximum the cabin heater, the defroster, and the fan), the other ventilation options, in the bottom row of center-panel buttons, including the ordinary defrost one (defrost symbol with a person), can be used at any fanspeed. If you minimize fanspeed, the system remembers that setting even if you turn off and on the ordinary defrost or the car or both, but forgets the fanspeed setting and default to maximum at turn-on if you turn off the climate control panel.

If there's some workaround sequence that lets me make lowest fanspeed the new default, that'd be really nifty.

But I'm puzzled why, Gotea, you lost 10 miles of predicted range "simply by turning on the fan (no heater or AC)". Might you have had the temperature set on something above LO, so the range-prediction algorithm was thinking you'd be using cabin heat at times? That could indeed have the effect you describe. In fact, I just gained 9 miles of predicted range just by setting to minimum fanspeed and LO temperature, then turning the Accessories (via Start button without holding down brake pedal, all while parked) off and on.

For venting, I just stick the climate on LO and the lowest fan speed. Doesn't seem to cause any power usage hit.

You CAN make the climate remember your preferences across power cycles. It is just not the default behavior.

Somewhere on the main MFT screens for climate, you will find a option called something like "Use last settings" or something like that. Turn it on. Then, when you turn the climate on, it will have the same settings as just before it was last turned off.

I don't know why Ford made the default setting forget the climate preferences (since it causes everyone to complain).

When I refer to the "lower fan speed" I meant just press the small fan speed control button to turn the climate system on. That will power the system on with the fan at the lowest setting.

WattsUp said:

You CAN make the climate remember your preferences across power cycles. It is just not the default behavior.
Somewhere on the main MFT screens for climate, you will find a option called something like "Use last settings" or something like that. Turn it on. Then, when you turn the climate on, it will have the same settings as just before it was last turned off.

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Is that an option added with some software revision? If not, please describe how to find that screen.
I could not find that in my (largely original) 2012. (1 screen shows CCPU S/W Ver'n 4.27.12058_PRODUCT)
Am looking because the system has recently added an annoying feature: turns on the air recirculation at start-up, even though I never use that mode.

(Other settings are remembered: if I turn car off while fan is On, with low temp. and AC off, those reappear as they were at next start ... But it adds recirc.
If fan etc. were all Off when I stop the car, it automatically turns on AC and full fan, blast it.)
I tried pulling (and replacing) F71 in attempt to reset such: no help.

That setting isn't on the MFT screen but on the left display on the dash in setup. I'll have to try this because I had always understood that setting to be only for remote starting the car and not "all the time" for the hvac.

jmueller065 said:

That setting isn't on the MFT screen but on the left display on the dash in setup. I'll have to try this because I had always understood that setting to be only for remote starting the car and not "all the time" for the hvac.

Click to expand...

That setting is only for remote starting the car. Anytime we leave the HVAC on when turning the car off (for the purpose of remote starting via the "Last Settings" option) the car always remembers the settings. Our car will also sometimes turn on recirc by itself depending on how you turn the HVAC on. I believe this is because the car defaults to Auto mode and Auto wants to turn on recirc for better air conditioning efficiency.