When it’s hot outside, your air conditioner becomes your best friend. This is definitely true in your car, where temperatures can skyrocket to 170 degrees in direct sunlight. But most people these days are under the impression that the more you turn on the air conditioner, the more gas your car will consume. Now that gas prices are higher than the cost of eating at McDonald’s, people are beginning to take precautions and do what they can to help fuel economy in their cars. The assumption that running your air conditioner burns much more gas is a false one. Leaving the air conditioner off hardly makes any difference to the amount of gas you burn. With the advent of modern and more fuel efficient cars, this myth is broken!
The air conditioner gets its power from the engine that uses some gasoline, but with today’s cars, this use of gasoline is minimal. Air conditioning can reduce your car’s fuel economy by up to 20% in some vehicles, but it depends on the type. Driving with the air conditioning saves more fuel than driving with the windows down. Driving with the windows down creates drag, which means that the engine has to work harder to keep the car at current speed; this burns more gas than if you just ran your air conditioner.
In the long run, using your air conditioner is far better than any other means of cooling yourself in the car, unless you are driving in traffic. When you are driving in traffic, you are not going very fast, so the resistance of the car is minimal. In these cases, you burn more fuel by running the air conditioner than with the windows open. That makes sense. When you’re driving on the highway, you can use the air conditioning or the “low window” method to cool off, because honestly, there isn’t a noticeable difference in gas usage at those speeds.
Here are some tips about you and your car’s heat. Before getting into a hot car, roll down the windows and allow it to air out. There’s nothing worse than getting into a hot car, sitting in a hot lava seat, touching a super-hot steering wheel, and breathing in congested, super-hot air. Your car needs some time to cool down for itself and for you. Once you think it’s cool enough to sit in the seat, start the car and run the air conditioning on recirculation. This will help the car cool down much faster, and you can be on the road quickly without sacrificing a layer of your precious skin.
So now that you know that air conditioning can be your fuel efficient friend, maybe you won’t be too quick to turn it off or ignore it in favor of rolling down your windows and choking on bugs. Your car air conditioner burns much less gas than the window method, so give your air conditioner a try and cool off in the heat.