The recirculate/fresh air switch doesn't seem to do much in my car. I always have fresh air coming thru my vents. Are all the roadsters like this, and is there any fix? The reason for all these questions at the same time is because I have my dash off and I'm trying to kill five or six birds at once. :biggrin:
Mine is the same - I don't think there's anything you can do to prevent the Roadster cabin from being drafty.
Yes at least in my car even with recirculation on I still get some air coming in. It is less with recirculation on but I still have some air coming in.
Here's the trick for cutting the air flow to minimum - useful for winter hypermileing. Turn on recirculate. Set air to vents. Close all the vents! This actually works pretty well. The only thing to remember is whenever you come into a town and have to stop, flip it to defog and turn the heat on low. Otherwise you'll fog over. Once you're back underway again flip it back to the vents.
Thanks guys. I think I read something on a Lotus site that talked about completely blocking the fresh air intake. I guess that would solve the leaking problem but I'm not sure I would want to give up the fresh air?
Mine is also very drafty even with the recirculation on, in fact I'd say it's the same with the recirc on or off. It made for a very chilly night drive a few weeks ago when i was trying to hypermile on the interstate for about 200 miles. I ended up turning the recirc on, putting it on the top vents, and closing those vents. It's less overall airflow but you definitely feel the draft up top then. Boy do I wish I could "close" all the inward air flow, I always end up having to run the heat if it's even chilly outside because the outside air just BLOWS in
During my dash removal project, I noticed that the vents close/seal like none I have ever seen. It looks like they should block virtually 100% of the flow. Each vent has a blade behind the flaps you see on the front of the vents. It looks like a great design! Unfortunately the main fresh/recirculate flap doesn't work quite as well.
According to the manual, on recirc it still gets 20% of the air from outside and 80% from inside as I recall. It does this by design.
The knob has a nose on his rear side. That nose was broken on my very orange, so turning the knob had no longer any effect. It was fixed by Tesla Munic for free.