No aircon? Am I bovvered.

[forddeliveryboy]

No. Cause ('specially) in a cheap car, no matter how cold the air blowing at you is, the amount of heat radiation is off the scale in weather like this. From the roof, through the glass, from the floor and through from the engine and exhaust.

 

It's heat radiation which warms you to the bone within minutes when you've been sledging all day (log stove or open fire), it takes many times longer for warm air to have the same effect. Sometimes, it never does. But waves of radiation penetrate skin and reach right through to your bones.

 

Hot day in a car is the extreme opposite. I don't think you really are cool no matter how low the air temp, since your insides are being heated constantly by this intense radiation. There are more than a few old farmers whose bodies couldn't cope with being fooled by aircon and died of heat-related heart problems as they walked away from the tractor.

 

Give me a car with proper ventilation any day, and if the heat is that bad then look to the Ozzie way of making things better. A second roof and sunshield to keep the midday sun off your legs and the dashboard. I rode in a car with aircon earlier and it was almost unpleasant, feeling hot inside but being blown by icy air. Give me a 2cv/Renner 4 anyday.

 

 

 

[purplebargeken]

I'd just like to briefly live in a walk in fridge. When I saw briefly I mean maybe a week or two. Cheers.

[beko1987]

You say that, but swmbo moans less when it works. Its been nice today having it, but my car doesnt get so hot as theres less glass, and both front windows open and the blowers on 2 does tje job just fine. I try not to moan about the heat as itll be cold soon!

[Sealtainn]

That's what I loved about my Series 2a, open the bulkhead & roof vents (the tropical roof was great).

[UltraWomble]

I have a little button that lights up green and portents to the imminent arrival of cold air.

 

It are a liar. Cold air never escapes the vents. Perhaps a fabled "re-gas" would help, though maybe no as one of the pipes has a hole in it to let the magic gas burble away.

[mercrocker]

Hate aircon. Have it at work but its just another thing for some twat to fiddle with at the expense of other people's comfort levels. Don't want it in a car - rather have sunroof and quarter lights.

[Taff]

aircon is most excellent when you have it and others don't. Conversely, if they have it and you don't it becomes crap.

[forddeliveryboy]

^^ Not necessarily. I had a Golf with it and it worked brilliantly, but the coalmine interior was still horridly hot even though the air was really cold. I'd have prefered a car with decent ventilation and an engine which made me feel less hot (see other thread).

[Guest Breadvan72]

autoshite aircon = holes in floor

 

[PhilA]

I'm glad I have shite aircon (it does work but has trouble keeping up and the fan switch overheats and starts to smell like melting plastic after about ten minutes).

 

Opening a window here just makes the air condense on you as the inside of the car is always a few degrees warmer than the outside and kicks the dew point up, and the %rH also.

No aircon here is a killing point for buying a car. In fact, you see adverts like the one for a pickup truck on the side of the street. "$1600 MUST GO! AIRCON"

 

It's a nice thing to have. Mind you, long journeys in a hot car with the smell of the interior plastics and dusty velour and warm, gooey cucumber sandwiches on the way to the seaside as a child is a character-building thing, y'know.

 

So is cleaning vomit out of carpet

 

 

--Phil

[UltraWomble]

. I'd have prefered a car with decent ventilation and an engine which made me feel less hot (see other thread).

 

No the jury is still out on that one as to how strange you are. In my experience all engines give out t.hea

[forddeliveryboy]

autoshite aircon = holes in floor

 

And cut out another roof to weld on top of the existing one for the Tropical look.

 

Land Rover and 2cv ventflaps are the best. Simple, effective and not much to go wrong.

[forddeliveryboy]

No the jury is still out on that one as to how strange you are. In my experience all engines give out t.hea

 

You missa da point.

 

Gruff low engine noise and lots of tyre noise = stress and fatigue. Proven by scientists. Tiredness and stress make you less able to cope with the heat, so the result is you feel hotter and more irritable.

[Skizzer]

Did find myself enquiring about getting the Discovery's (non-functioning) aircon looked at today.  Driving around with the windows down is perfectly fine most of the time, but it's a bit noisy above about 40mph. (And who knows how long the leccy windows will stay operational for, it being a Land Rover.)  If it just needs gas I'll do it, but I'm not spending hundreds on it.

 

Renault has a big flap in the scuttle and therefore fantastic ventilation.  Evolution has since gone into reverse, as we all know.

[stephen01]

I can only assume thet the A/C is not working correct, I LOVE it.

[mercrocker]

 

Mind you, long journeys in a hot car with the smell of the interior plastics and dusty velour and warm, gooey cucumber sandwiches on the way to the seaside as a child is a character-building thing, y'know.

 

 

 

 

--Phil

 

 

Spot-on! A recent (aircon free, naturally) run in the Cowley ended at the seaside with ham rolls Mrs Rocker had thoughtfully packed in the boot. Unfortunately neither of us considered packing a coolbox. They tasted so nicely nostalgic by lunchtime I was tempted to top off the experience with a pinch of sand in mine....

[Asimo]

White van, no rear or side windows is much cooler than car. Driving around in my own shade.

Today must be the first day for years that it has been worth my car having aircon in England, and I am so enjoying the heat that I left a/c off and opened the window for a bit of nonchalant elbow tanning.

[DSdriver]

The first car I had with aircon, back in the late seventies, before it was standard on everything, workmates wondered why I was turning up at work during a heatwave wearing an arran sweater.

 

The aircon on the XM is probably in need of a recharge but that's OK cos the fans only work when they feel like it. I haven't yet plucked up the courage to press the button that operates the sunroof.

[Pete-M]

Aircon is close to the top of the list of essential car things for me.

 

When looking at cars to buy if they don't have properly working AC I don't buy 'em.

 

Both my Focus and Merc have perfectly working AC. If they didn't, I wouldn't have bought them.

 

Driving the Escort across from CZ in 25° heat was the final straw for me driving stuff without AC.

 

I've driven 180 miles across England this afternoon, AC set at 20°c and all was good. No icy blast as described above, just a nicely cooled, quiet interior. The only unpleasant bit of the trip was getting out to refuel, horribly hot and humid outside, lovely and cool in the car.

 

I suspect the thing with AC is people seem not to know how to use it, they whack the AC down to LO and leave the fans blasting at full blast. Which is daft, but they're invariably the same folk who put the heater on full heat in October and leave it there til April.

[DSdriver]

Then there are those who have the aircon on with the windows/sunroof/floppytop open in a desperate attempt to stop global warming.

[alf892]

aircon is most excellent when you have it and others don't. Conversely, if they have it and you don't it becomes crap.

 

Well put Taff.......and I reckon a good answer to the question about inverse snobbery!

[forddeliveryboy]

^^ Inverted snobbery, hmm. Hope you're not implying meself or anyone else who prefers good ventilation to aircon is being snobbish. Same goes for daft profile and width tyres, over-stiff springs, over-weight shells and other oddities of current cars. If new cars were better, I'd love one. I've driven old and new, today's everything's good but little's outstanding, unlike in the past.

 

Mercs tend to be well-insulated if that was what you were in Pete, so there's less radiation of heat through to the cabin and fewer hot surfaces. So less of what I described in the OP.

 

Moderns without aircon can be truly horrid in hot weather, the art of ventilation of fresh air is long gone now almost all vehicles have their systems designed with aircon in mind. The thought of being stuck in three lanes of vehicles in a modern, without aircon, wouldn't appeal. I'll use the B-roads and take the little F when it's hot.

 

Once upon a time we all lived without fridges, amazing eh? How did they do that in Oz...  they used their initiative and actually engineered something to work rather than accepting defeat and just bolting another power-sapping device onto something else.

[alf892]

^^ Inverted snobbery, hmm. Hope you're not implying meself or anyone else who prefers good ventilation to aircon is being snobbish.

 

Mercs tend to be well-insulated, so there's less radiation of heat through to the cabin and fewer hot surfaces.

 

Moderns without aircon can be truly horrid in hot weather, the art of ventilation of fresh air is long gone now almost all vehicles have their systems designed with aircon in mind. The thought of being stuck in three lanes of vehicles in a modern, without aircon, wouldn't appeal. I'll use the B-roads and take the little F when it's hot.

 

Once upon a time we all lived without fridges, amazing eh? How did they do that in Oz...  they used their initiative and actually engineered something to work rather than accepting defeat and just bolting another power-sapping device onto something else.

 

Wrong end of stick firmly grasped! quetion about inverted snobbery was asked on Where's Pete M thread.....and I thought Taffs tongue in cheek remark was a nice example.

Chill.......via air con or otherwise!

[vulgalour]

I have air con in the Xantia and don't use it, not even today.  But then I've never got on with air con in cars, it makes the air too dry and I really dislike the shock of getting out of a cold car and into the warm outside spaces.  In theory it's a great idea, in practice in the UK the vast majority of the time it just isn't worth having if you've got windows you can open.

[BorniteIdentity]

Every winter I convince myself I don't need it in a car - and start warming to the idea of a Dacia Sandero Access.

 

Every summer I convince myself I need Air Con and spend take every possible opportunity to thieve a pool car from work.

 

35 today and rampant hayfever? It's a necessity sadly.

[forddeliveryboy]

@alf892 - good. Thought it seemed a bit odd - and I had read the other thread, too.

 

Everything we do today seems to be desgined to increase consumption, rather than making life genuinely better. Yep, it's difficult to explain to some why not having aircon and just designing cars better would make sense, but then the god of profit wouldf be angry. What is the point of making what our mobile greenhouses black or a dark shade of colour? Then strapping extra cooling on, too make up for the massive heat soak and poor ventilation? The sapiens bit seems to have gone missing from our name, let's hope it returns someday soon. In the meantime, we're increasingly Homo.

 

I know it uses less extra fuel on the motorway than having your windows down, but most of our conurbations seem to be in some sort of gridlock. What the extra mass and complexity of having aircon? Of course, it's useful in winter, too - but if your heating system weren't so convoluted and heater rads less crap there'd be less chance of misting up in the first place. And what about the costs of replacing things when they go wrong?

 

Mankind just seems to be mesmerised by consumerism today, having lost sight of the bigger picture. Jeez, most modern houses must be a bloody nightmare to walk into after you've been in a luxobarge with aircon. That'll be the next thing - all we need are two or three hot summers in a row. Aircon for houses.

 

Rant over.

[Lacquer Peel]

My Xsara doesn't provide any air flow through the vents with the fan turned off. The fan resistor is knackered so it only works on the highest speed. GAH!!!

 

The V70 has really good ventilation, as you'd expect, it's a rare one without A/C but it has a sunroof.

[richardmorris]

I have air con in the merc ( paid a lot for it to be working last year- new condenser). But I am happy in cars without it( 2cv and X1/9 are great when moving, but stuck in traffic I overheat ). On the bike today and temps nearby were 36 degrees ( in the shade). I got sun burn on my arm cycling home at 6pm! Walked into the shower with my clothes on too

[carlo]

If you suffered with hay fever you'd think differently, air con is then a life saver.

 

It's my number one requirement in a car - no a/c not interested.

[HMC]

The ka has aircon, but using it saps quite a few horses (theres not that many to start with)

 

That it actually works properly still on a category C, 13 owner, 13 year old rusty and neglected ford I find astonishing.