remote start with auto climate control

My friend bought a 2008 Chevrolet Duramax diesel and no matter what setting he has his climate contol on when he exits the vehicle the Remote Starter will decide on its own what setting it needs to be on. Example: It is 100 degrees outside, set the heater on high and turn truck off. Get out. Remote Start and it has A/C blowing cold air. In winter the same with the heater and it will also turn on his heated seats. This happens with no extra pushes of any buttons besides the Remote Start button. The Climate control system does not power on in the dash, so I'm guessing this is more than just hooking up one wire to an Accessory. I'm not sure what type of system it is because he baby's the truck and wont let me take it apart. Any ideas would be appreciated, I would like to apply this to my newly installed Remote Starter in my 2003 Chevy.

I'm assuming it is a factory remote start system that is integrated in to the entire vehicle?Kevin Pierson

I believe it is. Would it be possible to copy the climate part if u had a schematic or is there more to it than just a couple relays?

That's a feature of the factory remote start on some GM vehicles. Based on things like the outside temperature, it automatically decides if you need hot or cold air, at what fan speed, which vents, et cetera. In my opinion, that's one of the major advantages of a factory remote starter, because we can't easily duplicate this in the aftermarket. I know many people (my father included) who always forget to put the factory controls on their hottest and highest setting when parking......the result is that even though his car's engine warms up quickly, his interior doesn't. Anyway, not really sure what you're trying to accomplish here. You want to turn this stuff off on your friend's truck, or you want to try to do the same thing on a different car with an aftermarket starter?

I have a 2003 duramax in which I just installed an aftermarket remote starter. I would like to duplicate what his remote starter does with the climate controls and not have to leave them on a particular setting the night before.

Ah OK, now I understand. Are your climate controls automatic or manual? If they're automatic, just leave it in Auto mode and set the temperature you like....75 is the usual starting point. The system will automatically choose AC or heat as necessary. If they're manual, the place to start would be to get behind the climate control panel on the dash, test the wires behind it, and see what you can find. There might be regular ground/positive switched wires, or resistance-based, or the whole thing might be data. A factory wiring diagram would help. You can take the ground-when-running wire from your remote starter, have it activate a relay, and then try to get the relay to trigger the appropriate wires behind the climate control panel. My guess is that figuring out the fan will be the easiest part. I've had some cars where I've wired up the fan to always come on High during remote start. Triggering the hot/cold sliders or selecting which vent the air will come out of, will probably prove to be a lot more difficult. If you have heated seats, the switches are in the door and you can somehow activate those too.....but many of the bypass modules to do remote start automatically turn them on when it's cold out, as well as the rear defroster too.

Another issue I see with duplicating the factory remote start is for the aftermarket RS to determine if it is hot or cold outside to select heat or cool accordingly on the manual heater controls.

awdeclipse wrote: Another issue I see with duplicating the factory remote start is for the aftermarket RS to determine if it is hot or cold outside to select heat or cool accordingly on the manual heater controls.

I agree. I suppose with unlimited time and money you could make (or pay someone to make) something that would put out different triggers based on temperature. You could make one relay setup for maximum cold, another setup for maximum hot, and put a switch under the dash to toggle between the two for summer and winter.........but then what about spring and fall, with warm days but chilly nights? In my experience most people usually leave the hot/cold control more or less where it needs to be anyway. The main problem is that the fan gets turned down to low (or sometimes even off) while driving. I would say that a simple setup just to keep the fan on high during remote start would be enough for most people in most situations.