Hi Fellow Fitsters,
I've searched around and haven't been able to find any threads on this issue.. It seems when I set my fan to "recirculate" i get almost no air coming through the vents. If I set it to outside air there is pleny of blow power. I've had my Fit for one year and am pretty sure that when set to recirculate I had more pressure than I have now. I check the air filter and it looks fine and even tested w/o the filter in place and once I set to recirculate the air flow goes down to almost nothing and makes a different sound. Not sure if something is clogged or this just how it is?? When sliding to the control to the left "recirculate" setting it does feel a little harder than I remember but I could also just be remembering wrong...

Does anyone else out there notice anything similar?

Thanks!!

 

I would try to locate the air intake location for recirculation and see if something is blocking/clogging it.

 

I spent about 20 minutes looking around under the passenger and driver side and found nothing. I pulled out this little plastic piece that looked like an air inlet and looked inside with a flashlight and saw nothing...very strange. It definitly is not working though, it's now making a weird noise when switched over to recirculate. I'm wondering if it's a problem with the lever itself not plugging up some air redirect valve or something when it's slid over to the left. I'm going to keep digging around to see what i can find but if anyone knows or had the same problem please let me know. I have a feeling that taking it a dealership for this type of issue is going to turn into a hassle with lots of confused looks...and if it is indeed broken would this be something covered under warranty?

 

do you have an aftermarket radio or ever removed it? maybe the cables are mixed or misadjusted.. if not, bring it in, cuz my recirc is stronger than my fresh

 

Nope, still the default factory radio. I'm beginning to wonder ,now that you mention it, if something did jiggle loose as there's been a lot of constrction in my neighborhood and I've been driving on very uneven road!

The only non default thing I have is this "karr" after market alarm that the dealershit put in but I had them deactivate it, but remants of it are still there (I read that it uses "vampire taps" which sounds scary!). I do sometimes hear a weird electric zip/buzz sound coming from around the rpm gauge area when i first start the car but it's very random; I wonder if I have a short or something... guess I will have to go in to the shop.

Thanks for the reply! If I figure anything out I'll let you all know.

 

Did you just call us Fisters?! Awesome!

Seriously, though, please post back when you find out what the problem was. Best to you.

 

Ummm... I've got to ask, just to eliminate the possibility: Is your fan turned on?

Seriously. With the system set to recirc, outside air is blocked. When driving in with the switch in the 'normal' position you get forced outside air coming in, similar to having the fan turned on. In recirc mode, you don't get that.

 

Yup, fan is on. I turn it all the way to max 4 and there's a weird sound and next to no air when on recirc; when I put it on outside air it blows super strong. This is while parked.

I know what you mean about air coming while driving when set to outside air even if fan is off. In the winter Iturn it to recirc to stop that.



I think I typed fitSters!

 

I have this issue also. Its a year old and while my recirculate setting does work it does not work as well as the fresh air setting.

 

There's a clogging I think...

 

I happened to stumble upon these posts when I found a mention of the fit having a "cabin air filter" :

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...cabin-air.html

https://www.fitfreak.net/forums/fit-...placement.html

I wanted to check out the filter in case it was dirty and I followed the directions on pulling out the glovebox and in there I found the air inlet for recirculate-- there was a small plastic shopping bag blocking it!!!



I remember now that I had that bag on the floor a couple of days ago and the vacuum effect of setting the air to recirculate must have sucked it up in there and blocked the vent.

For all of those that guessed something was clogged you win!

I guess this is something that can happen again so everyone be careful of leaving empty plastic bags on the floor on the passenger side!

FitPilot, I wouldn't be surprised if you also have something at least partially blocking the recirc inlet so go ahead and try pulling the glovebox all the way down and take a look back there! It could also perhaps be a dirty cabin filter? Either way, doesn't hurt to look.


Thanks to all who replied with suggesstions! If this happens to anyone else I hope they'll stumble upon this thread and solve the mystery a lot faster


edit: In the last picture on the second link above look at the upper left and that's where the bag was covering up that grid looking thing with the foam filter in it.