Cooling Your Car without Blasting the AC

skiptamali · Tar Sands Joined: May 09, 2008 Posts: 55

Leave it to California: the California Air Resources Board is trying to figure out how to cool your car so that you don't have to waste as much fuel on AC.

The idea is to keep the car from getting seatbelt-burning-into-my-flesh hot in the first place. There are three proposed methods:
solar cooling paint, solar ventilation, and reflective window glazing.

I can imagine that this would have a huge impact- running the ac in my old car meant that my gas mileage went way down. Wonder if this is yet another experiment that has its start in CA and eventually becomes nationally mandated.

CelticCross · Coal Joined: Apr 21, 2007 Posts: 6

The solar cooling paint would be good for parked cars, but maybe they could put a little vent pane in the front corner of door windows you could crank open as needed when the car is moving. Then you could direct a stream of air where you wanted to. It might be good when you have smokers in the car too. I bet it would suck the smoke right out.

Wonder why no one ever thought of that?

Hmmm. And what if you locked your keys in the car? It would be cheaper to break open the vent window than it would to call locksmith. At least it should be cheaper.

RedStateGreen

I remember my dad's car having a little window like that when I was a kid. His car was a 1958 Chevy Biscayne:

You could crank the little front window open with a hand crank, and he used it to let smoke out like you mentioned. Smile

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emeraldg40 · Heavy Crude Joined: May 24, 2008 Posts: 140

Yeah, that was MY window in my parents 62 or 63 Valient. Was probably why I was never impressed with engineers. My dad said, "the engineers thought the little window was dumb". Made mental note at age 7.....dont trust engineers Smile

CelticCross · Coal Joined: Apr 21, 2007 Posts: 6

Nice pic Red S Green. I was jesting a bit, because I grew up with vents in the car too and often wish I had them today. Yesterday we were on a two hour drive in my wife's G6. I was burning up. My wife was freezing in the back seat. And my son kept rolling the window down because he thought the wind felt great. But that G6 goes whump whump whump with the window down on the highway. I told my son about the old vent windows we used to have on cars for days like that.

hope_full · Heavy Crude Joined: May 27, 2008 Posts: 226

Wasn't it the early 1960s Mercury that had the option of rolling down the REAR window? I thought that was so grand!

And on some of the 1930s Studebakers you could tilt open the FRONT windshield.

"Gee our old LaSalle ran great...those were the days..."

We had four 100-degree days last week. Got in my car after it sat in the sun thru that weather and found the speaker grill on the rear deck had cracked. It couldn't take the heat.

KrellEnergySource · Tar Sands Joined: Oct 31, 2005 Posts: 90

I've often thought that any car manufacturer that brought back wing windows would get a lot of sales based on nostalgia. They really did do a good job of directing a lot of air toward the driver or passenger on hot days, when you would open them far enough. Far more air than a little fan deep in the dash provides.

Windows like that would mean more to people than a cupholder, and that's saying something.

Brian

mos6507

I think it was mythbusters that demonstrated that running the AC doesn't really change mileage that much compared to rolling down the windows, at least at freeway speeds. If you run the fan and keep the windows up maybe it would be a net gain, but the loss of aerodynamics is a problem with opening windows at high speeds.
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mommy22 · Heavy Crude Joined: Jul 22, 2005 Posts: 268

Does anyone know if it makes a difference if you have the air conditioning on very low (like the lowest option) and blasting it?
We were wondering about that the other day.

Denny

AT high speeds, apparently, air conditionnig is more efficient than open windows due to the aerodynamic drag.

By the way, this was a a very effective form of "air conditioning", my Dad's '48 Ford pickup had one of these cowl pop up ventilators:

FoxV

well they need to do something because the last thing we want is for the average sheeple to find a solution on their own. How's this for an anecdote:

Met a visitor of my new neighbor the other day while I was moving in. She (way over 200lbs) came out and sat in her car (SUV of course) while I was maneuvering a trailer and partially blocking the drive way. I asked her if she could get out and was waiting for me to move. She said she was fine and was just waiting in the car till the AC cooled it down before leaving (it was over 30C at the time)

I stifled my jaw dropping shock and politely said "Ok" and continued on my way. She than stayed in the car running it on idle with the AC on; and the windows open; for a FULL 15 MINUTES.

Unbelievable!

As for car cooling, something to consider is Solar window tint. I have some I use on the rear hatch window to cool down the back for the dog. Home depot now has a clear Solar tint I'm going to look into for the front windshield where its needed most.
no adhesive window tint
Home Depot's Light Film