I've had my 13 PTT for about 3 months now and with weather in SoCal getting warmer in the past few days I've been noticing that I'm never comfortable in the car and it always feel warm.
Today I did a comparison in the garage between our C class and PTT using manual thermometer and found out that there is about 12-14 degrees difference in the vents oputput. I put both cars on lowest temp and about the same fan speed (which was medium). Mers was at 40 degrees and PTT was around 54...

I'm hoping that this is not how this car is "designed"... But at the same time for 2013 car to be low in freon is also kind of strange.

Another issue I noticed is that rear vents (I have 4 zone climate control option) are even warmer at 60 degrees and when fan speed on MONO, rear vents are barely blowing air when on the front you care really feel it.

Before i go to my dealer which I have a feeling will tell me "it's normal" I'd like to know if this is really a problem with Panameras or not.

 

Logimind, thanks for the info. I did try the option you mentioned and switched it from "soft/comfort" to strong, or whatever it was. These are all the vent settings that simply blow air harder, but I think in my case air should be first cold to start with. I'm surprised that my C class can easily accomplish 40 degrees where P is 15 degrees warmer.. From the day one when I got the car I noticed right away that I find myself increasing vent mode higher than normal and still not comfortable.

 

Do you know if 4 zone system in Panameras has two compressors or just a bigger main one? Or they sell you mainly switches for vent speed and temp control and still use the same "guts"? My rear vent today were around 58 degrees where front was around 49, and thats with recirculation on with 78 degrees outside and car not being super hot outside.

I know I'm not the guy that always feels hot, in fact it's the opposite and I know that it hasn't even started being real hot. I just like to do my research before I go to my dealer, because my prior experience showed that they will try to do anything they can to not look into your problem unless it is a very obvious one. My experience with BMW was different, they always worked with you and tried to make sure things are fixed and work as they should.

 

I wonder if anyone on the board who had Panamera can measure the temperature in lowest setting 60 and let me know? I would really appreciate this.

 

how long did you wait before measuring the temperature? i'll try to do that when i get a chance.

my coworker who drives a CLS sat in the back of my Panamera and commented that the cool air comes out faster than his CLS.

the only time when i felt the A/C was inadequate was when someone left the AC compressor button in the off toggle.

the heating, on the other hand, is a different story. it takes the Panamera longer to put out hot air in the winter than the S class.

 

Thanks asfwp, I would appreciate this. I actually wait for a while and while driving around keep the digital thermometer there inside the center vent. Like today I was drivign around and it was 73 outside, inside the lowest I could get in front was 46 and back was 58.

So regarding the back, not only it is 12 degrees warmer, but when I set it to MONO, blower on the back is way slower. My 3 year old child always comments that she is warm on the back.

If you can, please measure the rear temperature while both fron and rear are set to 60 degrees. Thanks!

 

Reviving this thread:

The a/c in my 2013 Panamera GTS seems a bit anemic to me as well. When it's really hot out and you start the car, it takes over 5 minutes if you remain stationary in order for it to start blowing cool air. Even after you drive off the temp is cool-ish but not as cold as I would expect for 5-10 minutes thereafter.

It spent two days at the dealership and they ran a variety of diagnostics. During this time I had a 2015 Cayenne diesel loaner. The A/C in that was ice cold, and it reached this temp within a minute of startup no matter what the conditions. I couldn't believe the difference. The ventilated seats also had way more airflow than my car.

The only fault they could find was the refrigerant was a little low (52 vs. 58...don't remember the units). Otherwise they claimed the system was working fine.

When I picked up the car, it had been sitting outside in 85 degree sun for a few hours. I had the service adviser come out to the car with me while I started it. It took almost 10 minutes for the car to noticeably start cooling off. He of course maintained this is normal. I dunno. Once I started driving it started cooling off a bit, but it still took quite awhile. He also told me a "trick" that they have found is not to push the Max A/C button but instead lower the temp to 60 degrees (so that it still displays a number and not "Lo") and manually raise up the fan speed. Not sure that did anything.

I just find the whole system to be more anemic that it should be. I have to turn the temp down to 5-8 cooler than I really want it just to maintain my desired temp. I think this is because the cooling system is calibrated expected the a/c to be blowing cooler air than it really is.

The thing is, it only has this problem when it's very hot out. In moderate conditions the a/c temp seems to blow fine. Which is why I suspect their temperature tests at the dealership went OK.

I'm going to take a thermometer with me tomorrow and start measuring vent temperatures.

 

Yeah... it is what it is. I don't think there is anything wrong with your particular car, I think it's just Panameras in general have a very weak and badly designed AC system.

Amount of noise you hear from your vent/fan versus amount of air it's blowing is not balanced, vent is way louder than any other car. At 3 bars it blows normal amount of air, but loud, when on any other car that would blow the same amount of air will be much quieter.

Same applies to the temperature, I did a lot of tests, real apple to apple comparisons with the same conditions etc, and output temperature from the front vents was always about 6 degrees warmer than any other car (tested with MB, Audi, BMW).

I simply accepted this and try to live with this. As much as I love this car, there are two things that really annoy me, one is AC and second one is the fact that my PDK is not consistent. Sometimes it's smooth and sometimes its a bit jerky on thakeoffs. Again, Porsche says its "normal'! Why any Mercedes AMG with DCT doesn't do thit? Should PDK be the smoothest one since Porsche wrote a book on DCT? I get it, PDK is for racing and is faster than any other DCT, but then in this case don't install it in the Luxury Sports Sedan, or don't make a Luxury Sports Sedan if you don't have a proper gearbox for it, you don't think so?

Anyway, here is the tip I found to be working for me. On the hot days, set temp to 60 and use vent speed as your regulator instead. If you leave it on auto and set it to 70 for example, your AC will blow slightly warmer air than at 60, so it will always take a lot longer for your car to cool off. Yes, I know in defeats the purpose of having Auto AC when using it in manual mode, but at least you feel more comfortable in the car on hot days

 

4-zone climate does have a second AC compressor and it will help to cool the car faster.

 

Actually thats not the case. I do have 4-zone system and my dealer told me that the car only has one compressor...

 

4-zone climate is not available on diesel or e-hybrid models, because my dealer said the 2nd AC unit takes up space in the trunk area.

 

Sorry, I was talking about the Cayenne, not sure if it is the case on the Panamera.

 

I live in south FL and drive a 2012 Panamera S, 4 zone a/c, car is dark blue and espresso leather.
Coming from Lexus and Mercedes, I also noticed that it takes longer to cool down and I keep the a/c settings a few degrees cooler than in any other car I previously owned. No complaints from my kids in the back seat, but then again, each their own bucket seat with 18 or so buttons to adjust plus their own a/c, quite a different experience from me being on the back seat of my father's Alfasud in the late seventies!

 

check p. 146 manual. Should help.

 

Agreed..... my old lexus IS AC system runs circles around my Panny