Pre-cool remotely?

[Nocturnal]

View attachment 629042

I do the same, just using ambient air to cool it down. Seems good enough.

 

[Peter 224]

It isn't often that we in the south of the UK get days above 30C = 85F, but in the sun the car is way hotter.
Pre-cooling the car is something that has to be experienced, and then you say "I'll never buy a car that doesn't make this possible.
Pre-heating in the winter will be even more wonderful....

 

[JBT66]

You can remotely set temp. If I’m in and out of a store I just leave it on. If not I just turn it on when I’m checking out or paying the bill.

 

[MentalNomad]

Yeah it worked for me as long as the AC was on the last time I was using any HVAC. Who knows. These cars do whatever the hell they want. Could’ve been a quirk that’s been since remedied.

No, it has always turned on the compressor if you turn on Climate from the app. What's more likely is that you fired up the app, and it did not connect to the car. Sometimes it takes a while to do that if the car is asleep.

If the app is not connected to the car and you hit the climate button, it doesn't actually do anything. You have to make sure that you see the status change on your mobile to know that you're connected so that the command will "take" and the compressor is going to be on.

When you got to your car, if all the fans were spinning but the AC was off, that's because you had it set to do cabin overheat protection without kicking on the AC... Which is probably the right move. But the fans made you think you turned on the AC, when you hadn't.

That's what I think happened, because I've had my car in that mode for years and I've always been using the pre-cooling feature, and I've never had it fail to turn on the compressor... But many times, I'd open the app, and tap tap tap that Climate button waiting for the app to connect to the car. Now, I just take out the phone, open the app, and put it down on the counter for a while to give it wake up time, and then I reopen the app to turn on the heating or cooling.

The occasional app car connection lag is one of my few complaints about the car. If you walk up to the car and realize someone pulled up tight and you want to use Summon to back it out, and you haven't recently woken up the car, you can find yourself standing there for what feels like a minute (but is probably 20 seconds) waiting for your smart car to wake up to take simple command.

You really need to plan in advance if you want things to feel smooth and seamless.