Air Conditioning? Why Choose a Car With That?


by Michael Russell - Date: 2007-04-08 - Word Count: 565 Share This!

Unless you live in the north of Russia, or plan on setting up home in Antarctica, where the thermometer never rises much above zero Celsius, there are going to be days that are hot enough to warrant having a system of keeping cool in your car. Affordable air conditioning has been around since the 1980s. Today, more and more cars are being fitted with what they call in the trade climate control as a standard feature, especially in countries that have warmer climates. So why choose a car that has air conditioning over one that does not? Let's look at some of the reasons.

First and foremost is comfort. On a hot day the last thing anyone would want to do is sit in a hot car for any length of time. That's because even when the outside temperature is only mildly hot, the inside of that tin box always gets much hotter. Despite having all the windows open, when a car is stationary and the sun is out, the front and rear windscreens of the car let all the heat in but don't let it out again. The metal shell of the car also heats up, with darker colours absorbing more heat than lighter ones. Whatever the colour, the end result is the same. The inside temperature rises to an unbearable level very quickly.

Before the advent of air conditioning in cars, the only way to cool down was to keep the car moving with the windows down. That might have been fine if your journey took you through the open countryside, but it was no joke being stuck in an urban traffic jam. To make matters worse, as temperatures began to rise, tempers began to flare. When the frustration of being delayed coupled with the oppressive heat, it produced many angry verbal and even the odd physical exchanges between motorists.

Then along comes air conditioning in the car. The change in the behaviour of motorists is magical. With the temperature inside the vehicle at a comfortable level, tempers are now much better kept and the whole driving experience is more comfortable and even the off traffic jam more bearable.

Another less well known use of air conditioning in the car is in damp weather. Nothing clears a misty windshield faster than a blast of dry air with the air conditioning full on. Side windows magically demist too, so it makes for safer driving. It also prevents that sometimes seen accident waiting to happen of someone driving down the road with their head poking out of window to see where they are going.

A lot of people are opposed to using air conditioning in their car because of the extra load its operation puts on the fuel economy. This is true while the car is stationary. They fail to realise however that when a car is in motion with the windows open, it uses almost as much additional fuel as it would with the windows up and the air conditioning switched on, due to the drag effect of the open windows. A car's fuel economy is rated with the windows closed because it's more aerodynamic.

These are some of the reasons why air conditioning in cars has become so popular in recent years making the driving experience much more appealing on hot, sunny days whether you are driving in the open countryside or fighting your way through the city streets.


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Michael Russell

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