HVAC vents weak airflow... anyone else?

My front HVAC vents have really weak airflow. I had a Highlander before and its not even close. Is this normal for this truck or does anyone else have this issue? I'm wondering if something in the air control module is not directing the air properly.

Anyway, any suggestions/comments greatly appreciated.

 

Have you checked or replaced your cabin filter?

 

Great suggestion. I only have 6k miles but bought it used, so I'll definitely check.

 

Mine is the same way and can anyone know how to make the vents blow hot air on face and hands for winter? what buttons do you push?

 

I thought the same think when I purchased my 2023. Living in central Florida I needed more AC then the Tundra was providing. Then I found that setting AC to auto makes a big difference. I also used Techstream to tell the computer that the temp sensor was 2 higher degrees. But setting AC to Auto made the most difference.

 

When I rented one for a week, I hated the AC. Weak airflow, didn't get cold fast (hardly got cold at all)....

 

It is normal for this truck. The temp calibration seems to off on a lot of these trucks. Air flow through the dash vents is weak. Lots of fan noise but not much flow. The ventilated seats make a difference in the summer though.

 

If you run it on Auto air flow is normal. When not in Auto, air flow is weak thru ALL vents

Also if you get a Carista, or borrow one you can change the ambient temp to -2 and the AC works a ton better with no effect on winter heat.

 

There are some long threads about this. I confirmed what others have said in that thread about if you set it to LO it blows like it should, like any other vehicle, but as soon as you start to bump up the temp to 60 the airflow cuts in half. Some have gone in and had the actuators recalibrated which have made the issue somewhat better. But this is by design because they are all like this apparently and it’s a god awful design.

Doesn’t matter if it’s on AUTO or not, outside or inside air, it blows at 50% at 60 and the more the temp goes up the flow goes down.

 

IMHO the Yoda engineers designed the Tundra AC to work like a house central HVAC system. Having the biggest AC in your home doesn't make it cooler or, more realistically more comfortable. Anecdote: I've lived in Florida since the eighties. I have friends that would install the biggest AC that they could afford in there home. Then they had issues with cold spikes and uncomfortable overall temps. But the biggest issue was with large amounts of mold growing in their homes. They would ask me and my buddy ( the neighborhood fixit guys) to see what we could do to fix the issue. They would get pissed when we told them the cause was to big of an AC unit. So we would bandaid the cause by slowing their blower motors so it took longer to cool the house. And we installed a humidistat, so the AC would shut off after reaching a reasonable level of humidity instead of temperature. Bottom line is having the trucks blower flowing faster doesn't necessarily make the cab temperature more comfortable overall. Also older automotive AC systems cooled so fast that they never removed the humidity from the evaporator and mold would build up causing the inside of the vehicle to stink. Again, leaving the Tundra AC on auto gets me to a comfortable temp in Florida weather. Your mileage may vary

 

Born/raised in Jax myself but now living in Saint Augustine so I know all about the heat. I want that shit blowing hard if I turn it all the way up and have it on the front vents. They are doing something stupid with the doors and venting air elsewhere even though you have it set to front only. You can hear the shift from LO to 60. It’s a horrible design that should have never been implemented.

 

I brought up similar issue with my Tundra last winter. I was told this is normal. In summer AC works amazing when set to LO, high fan speed, and front vents. As soon you adjust above LO without touching anything else, you can feel vent blow weaker. It's weird though cause I can switch to top vent and feet and it blows stronger. Guess they don't want you blasting your face full speed with hot air.

This is what my dealer said:

 

Great info. Glad to know I'm not crazy. I played around with it today and also confirmed, it blows stronger when split between floor and vents. I also buy what LouALouA said about the HVAC system as a holistic consideration. I can see with recent recalls, etc., that they would be terrified of a mold problem and would do whatever to mitigate that. Guess I'll have to learn to live with it as frustrating as it is. Arghh.

 

I don’t have any complaints about maintaining temperature in this truck once I set the temp dial cal

other than that , it’s great , I don’t pay attention to air flow, I pay attention to if I’m comfortable or not

 

Noticed today on HI Heat...
Set to blow only on upper vents.
Out of the front the airflow was weaker than I expect.
Out of the rear seat upper vents the airflow was very strong.

 

Have you done this and experienced better airflow? I have about 10k miles and have weak airflow and wouldn't expect it to be so clogged its affecting the airflow yet

 

So I just purchased a 24 tundra 6 months ago, and noticed the air flow volume Is really weak through the dash vents, when you have it set to heat. It doesn't matter if you manually select dash friends, it still has very low air volume, but if you put your hand on the back vents, it's very strong. So I took it into the toyota dealer, thinking a servo motor or the door was not opening, but they gave me my truck back and said there's nothing wrong with it and that you get low airflow due to the heater core blocking the air. This was actually an incorrect statement. I have been a mechanic for 20 years and called him out on his statement and told him i would call him after i figured it out. So i took it back to my shop and pulled up all the diagrams of the airflow, servo motor positions in certain settings and all the parameters list for servo motors. I then hooked it up to my scan tool and noticed that if you go to low setting Your dash door servo goes to 247 pulse and have good air flow through dash vents /cool. If you raise the temp even 1 degree, you lose air flow and the servo pulse changes to 232. All the parameters show normal operating pulse of this servo motor is 232. So this being said it's a calibration issue or done by design. I have a theroy because they use something called a ptc heater in this system which is an electric heater. I believe toyota doesn't want the warm air blowing directly on your face as it will make it feel hotter then then the cab temp. Or there is a is with the vacuum amplifier not allowing the driver to select dash vents when the heater is going. Hope this helps!

 

On my 2018 RAV4, the ptc or electric heat only worked on defrost for instant heat for quick defrost of windshield. I assumed the same on my Tundra

 

It’s annoying but this is by design. Toyota was correct saying there was nothing wrong. We don’t like it, but it’s how they designed it.

 

I noticed better airflow when I installed a K&N cabin air filter.

 

I found a stupid work around for anyone who is annoyed by this design flaw since toyota refuses to address it. If you turn Sync off and set the passenger side to LOW and close those vents and have the driver side on HI it will blow how it should but I only do this when I drive to work, not with my wife in the truck.