The other day I noticed a 'new' word on the AC display panel. "SMOG" was under the left half of the fan spped graphics. I had never noticed this before so I took note. It disappeared by the time to looked a second time, which may have been several minutes.

I had not made any changes to the temp or fan settings. I had the AC on at a moderate setting for both sides of the car. Temp was probably set at about 70°.

I reviewed the owner's manual to see what it meant only to discover that it was not even mentioned.

What does it mean? is it possibly connected to the carbon filter; i.e. suggesting a replacement is due, etc?
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i am pretty sure what happen was there is a sensor that monitors particulates in the air (smog or pollution). when the sensor detects a certain threshold, the charcoal filter kicks in automatically. hopefully u drove through a smoggy area or maybe you have a malfunctioning sensor..

 

meooem1 is right, check your smog sensor !

 

Living in Los Angeles I would be more shocked to find out that the sensor is malfunctioning than to believe the outside air was "smoggy".
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The smog portion of the climate control has no real value unless you are driving in a smoke stack...could you have been behind a bus?
For your own piece of mind,run the onboard climate control diagnostics to make sure all sensors are up to snuf and that there are no error codes.
http://www.eclassbenz.com/node/27
Have fun!
ohlord
"GOT CODES?"

 

I finally returned to this post to find more information than I am able to digest at this time of day.
I'll bookmark the page and check it out the next time I have spare time.
Thanks for the absolutely more-than-complete answer to my question.

Once in awhile, my internal smog sensor goes haywire in SoCal, so it would be no shocker to find out the car simply had a 'cough'.
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