What Does the Recirculation Button Do in a Car?

Before, cars had dashboards full of buttons, although now the trend is to clear the center console of physical controls and concentrate most of them on large digital and touch screens. But, whether physical or through a screen, all cars have a button that everyone knows what it is, but hardly anyone knows what it does. Let's see what does the recirculation button does in a car.

Driving becomes a daily routine. Most of the trips consist of taking the car in the morning to take the children to school, going to work, running an errand, and then returning home. In those moments, we adopt a series of habits that we repeat every day, such as turning on the air conditioning if it is summer or heating in winter. But we ignore the air recirculation button.

What Does the Recirculation Button Do in a Car?

It is a button located on the center console, between the air conditioning or climate control controls, with the symbol of an interior arrow or several rotating arrows. This button allows you to recirculate the air and determine where you want the car to take a stand from, outside or inside. When you activate the button, the interior air is sucked in to be redirected to the different parts of the passenger compartment.

In this way, the car becomes almost airtight so as not to take in the air from outside, and the internal air circulates through the different filters. It ensures that the passenger compartment cools down earlier, as it reuses the cold air obtained when the air conditioning or air conditioning is activated. The longer the air recirculation button is operational, the colder the environment until it reaches the perfect possible temperature.

When to use Air Recirculation Button

The air recirculation button must be used in two moments, mainly. The first is, logically, in summer, to cool the car interior faster. How? When you get into the car in the summer, it is very hot. When activating the air conditioning, you should turn on the air recirculation button after a few minutes when you notice that the air begins to come out cold. Thus, the car will not take in hot air from the outside and will only use the air already cooled inside. In this way, you will achieve that the temperature of the passenger compartment drops more quickly.

The second case in which you should use this function is when you are driving in areas with a lot of pollution, dust, bad smells, dirty air, or if you are in a traffic jam inside a tunnel or you live in a coastal area with wonderful sand. In these cases, it is good to use the button to prevent that dirty air from entering the car's interior, and it will be better for your health.

10-minute rule

Now, do not abuse the use of the air recirculation button. It is not advisable to have it activated for more than ten minutes since the air can become thin and overloaded and create condensation on the windows, especially in winter. In addition, air circulated many times in the same place can create drowsiness and cause a loss of concentration in the driver. Ideally, activate it when necessary and no more than ten minutes once you have reached a pleasant environment. Then, it lets in new air from outside to renew itself.

On the other hand, it is not recommended to use it in winter since you will only get the humidity from the outside to stay inside the car. It will cause the windows to fog up and will be very annoying to drive safely. In winter, you can activate it to recirculate the warm air inside (warmer than in the street), but only for a few minutes.