#AirConditioning

Try as I might, I can’t recall exactly which vehicle delivered air conditioned motoring to my family for the first time. Growing up, our vehicles were of the modest variety, and luxuries like ice-cold A/C didn’t find their way into our household until I has a teenager. Too hot? Jeez, maybe you should roll down a window. Too cold? Listen, this is what clothes are for. Bundle up.

It’s possible the first car I drove after receiving my learner’s permit (called a G1 up here in Canadia) was the vehicle in question, though it’s also possible the feature bit the dust somewhere between the time the ’83 Olds left the factory and when it turned up in our driveway in 1992. Come to think of it, I know it wasn’t operational, as I wouldn’t have cursed those fixed rear panes and little pop-out vent windows had I not been soaking through my shirt at the time.

That slider bar on the dash was just a tease, nothing else.

Anyway, you learn to live with it, but age and the proliferation of creature comforts have a way of turning any man or woman soft. Can you live without A/C in June of 2018?

Josh writes:

Around fall of last year, my girlfriend and I learned we were going to have a baby. I already have two girls and she has three boys. With the existing brood, we were already traveling places in convoy as her Nissan Maxima and my Honda Accord Coupe V6 could not fit everyone together. We threw our money together to get a third vehicle that could carry the entire family and our future baby.

After much research on my end and exploring all other alternatives, we concluded that we wanted a good ol’ Chevy Suburban. It has plenty of room for all of us, can be had relatively cheap, it’s simple enough to troubleshoot and work on, yet will be pretty handy for future home improvement projects.

TTAC Regular David Holzman writes:

Sajeev,

My here-to-fore bombproof 2008 Honda Civic (stick) with 84,000 miles just suffered an air conditioning failure. I’d planned to drive it until spring before getting the AC repaired — I drove my ’99 Accord for almost four years after the AC quit — but a clattering noise led me to contact my friend who owns a garage for advice. He told me that unlike my old 1999 Accord, the Civic and most other cars these days run the AC off of a serpentine belt that also powers the alternator and water pump (if any of the above info is wrong, it’s my fault, not Marc’s). In other words, I could get stranded, quickly. So, I was forced to get a new compressor to the tune of $1,300 due — in large part, I understand — to environmental regs and lousy refrigerant that meets such regs.

Nick writes:

Hello Sajeev,

(I really wanted to put the “n” in there.)

I have a ’97 Prelude that will sometimes cycle on and off its air conditioning when it’s unbearable hot outside (June-September here in Phoenix). Air will come out nice and cold, then it will get real warm suddenly for about 30 seconds before getting cold again. It only happens when it’s extremely hot outside and I’ve been driving for awhile. It works fine the majority of the time. What do you think?

TTAC Commentator sastexan writes:

Hi Sajeev,

Hope you are doing well. I haven’t seen a lot of activity from you on TTAC lately (but I haven’t been as religious a reader lately either between work and kiddos). I find it interesting what cars default to having their climate control (manual or automatic) on re-circulating versus fresh air. One of the things I like about our Odyssey is that it defaults to fresh air unless the cooling load called for is very heavy (in auto mode, in manual mode it won’t switch).

TTAC commentator Land Ark writes:

Sajeev:

I recently acquired a 2007 Honda Civic EX sedan from a neighbor who moved out of the country. I got a really good deal on it and for the most part it’s in good shape. It has 80k miles, 5 speed, and one major flaw. The air conditioning is a little bi-polar; sometimes if blows cold and sometimes not.

It’s always nice when you come across an answer that addresses a question that you’ve wondered about? When I saw that Vox, a relatively new site that says it has “the smartest thinkers, the toughest questions” to “explain” our confusing world to us, was running a post on which uses less fuel, running the A/C or opening the windows, I figured I could put the question to bed. While I did find out about the windows down vs air conditioning thing, I also found out that the smart thinkers over at Vox may not be as smart as they think they are.

I remember those advertisements of the 1990’s when a loaded car meant….

“AUTOMATIC! POWER PACKAGE! V6 ENGINE! ABS! PREMIUM SOUND SYSTEM! ALLOY WHEELS!”

All this and MUCH MUCH MORE! was yours for the low, low lease price of $199 a month or $14,995 before a healthy smattering of taxes and bogus fees.

These days a loaded car means something else entirely.