Does your car have air-conditioning?

some do, some don't. Some people have more than one car, I am deeply offended that there is not an option to cover this, or at least allow me to check off more that one box.

only when the windows are down

It did last summer. Sometime over the winter it went away.

I shudder to think of all the cars in the hot, humid places that have their AC running 24 hours a day.

YES!

The Probe I just bought has Air Conditioning. I need to have it recharged.

One does, one doesn't and one has most of an air-conditioning system.

heh.."probe"..hehehehehehehehehe

No, my air-conditioning doesn't have a car.

Back when I collected foreign cars, I usually removed the air conditioners, or converted them into air-tank compressors. There was a time when cars had a version of a swamp cooler, a water tank that hung from the side window utilizing evaporative cooling, technology went downhill from there. Now we have de-humidifiers in cars that refidgerate the air then heat it again. And we wonder about the oil supply.

Jaff.....I know I know...many who know me have already pointed out the irony :P

I don't have a car but i would like one, especially a convertible like a Miata, I test drove a purple Celica GT convertible about a year ago. Unfortunately i'm not totally in control of my life, and would have to work in a coffee bar forever or get married or something, which isn't really justified just to get a car. So i'm pretty stuck without I guess.

Don't know

wicksy: i hope that's not an answer to something in another survey, cause i really don't feel like working that hard to figure things out, even though i guess it'd be proper karma for my overall consciousness, since i ran everyone else through a gauntlet when i arrived as kristal.

Jasmine: What are you on about?

"Don't know meant" don't know the answer to this question. I drive lots of different cars, some have it, some don't.

Were you Kristal Rose?

Yeah, I was, i'm doing this life thing where i'm trying to figure out if i can ditch her entirely and start over yet again. I'm on SSDI, so i have nothing to lose except a lot of superlative stance, and possibly my programming career options, but a lot to gain if i can figure out how to acclimatize to a 36 year old world with probably about a 16 year old viewpoint.
CARS: I saw an ad for a new thunderbird that i want, and a billboard just appeared on my corner for Bugs that said 'totally redesigned, just like everyone else in LA' in fact all my neighborhood billboards changed to things like 'no speed limits', 'send it like you mean it', japanese animation, air-force.

yes, but i try not to use it

It seems really weird to me that when I was a kid (about 30 years ago) nobody bothered with air conditioning around here (Seattle) because it would hardly ever be needed. Nowadays I often wish I had it!

hell yes wouldnt have it any other way!!!!

Renee why would you try not to use it???

One of my ancient ideas for saving gas was to have all the accessories applied in full force during braking: Every time you slowed for an intersection, you'd be charging your battery, lowering the cabin temperature, building your steering pressure, lowering the coolant temperature, etc. instead of just heating the atmosphere with brake pads. I hear it's being done now. Eventually i invented the fuel cell, only to find Lawrence Livermore beat me to that one too. Several years ago. Why we don't use it I have no idea. It would cut city gas mileage by 25% and make semi-elecric cars viable. As is, electric cars are worse for the environment since a Honda is more efficient than an oil power plant and converting to electricity, and the world has enough lead-acid batteries as is.

KR: we don't use many innovations we could use because car companies, gas companies and oil companies don't WANT us to, and spend a lot of money and effort to quash such ideas so they can remain in business raking in the profits and polluting the environment.

KR: charging the battery at braking would be a waste of time since the battery gets completely recharged within ten minutes of takeoff anyhow, and the accessories all run off the engine (accept AC, which I don't understand). But the concept is good. I believe Geo makes a car that uses a big spring, so when you hit the brakes it saves your momentum, which goes into your accelleration when you start up again. Much, much better gas savings than routing it to the headlights.

It is likely that electric cars do this as a matter of course.

There was a really good article in SciAm this month talking about fuel cells, how close we are to making them practical, and what stands in the way.

**drdt: Standard air-conditioning does run off the engine.

very: true, i know of certain gas saving patents they own. Worse though was how the automotive companies bought up the street cars and ran them into the ground back in the 30's and 40's.
drdt: It's called regenerative braking. It's being done now. Accesories draw a constant 3 h.p. on the average. For night driving even the headlights would make a difference. The starter and alternator could be combined into one component that also drives all the accessories. The Citroen-Maserati runs all the accessories as a single modular package, though off the engine. Last I heard, electrics were primitive, not even using a computer to advance the commutator. If the engine was used to charge the battery on decells, I haven't heard of it, but it would be an obvious design. Electric would be much better if we had diamond lanes with wireless inductors and cellular electric meters to generate your monthly bill. Only enough battery to get you between the boulevard and your home would be required, and it would be cheaper than rewiring garages.
Besides, even as a retrofit for 1967 Fords, all that would be required is a new regulator with eiter a decel sensor or a connection to the brake light lead. Component cost $25.00: 2% gas savings 10k mi/yr @ $1.30/gal & 20 mpg = $13, therefore 2 year till return on investment. Better than the 5 years you get from a wall switch timer.

Daver: Okay, bad phrasing. My understanding is that the engine generates a lot of access power which is wasted unless it happens to be shunted into lights/radio/etc. However the AC is not run off of this access power, so when you turn it on you actually get a major performance hit. Which is what I meant by 'not running of the engine.' I guess it does run off the engine, but it isn't free.

Jas: the engine is used to charge the battery whenever it is running. $25 is down in the range where I don't worry about return on investment; I blow more than that in a week to keep from being hassled. The problem with your electric plan is that it requires 100% buy-in to be cost-effective. And that isn't the kind of technology you can just roll out and expect people to convert to. Like any new idea, you have to go gradually and increase the support as more people sign on. And of course you have to make it seem advatageous to the individual signing on.

Oh, and nowadays 35-40mpg seems to be the norm.

drdt: My AC sucks a lot of power from my engine... I have a really small engine, so when I am trying to get up a big hill or to pick up speed, I usually turn the AC off.

**drdt: If your engine was producing any excess power, you'd be accelerating.

drdt - SUVs often get less than 20 mpg.

Daver: I don't think so; I think the access gets bled off as heat. It is a fact that the generator is always turning when the engine is running; I would expect that to be a constant (small) drag on the engine whether it powers anything or not. But I'm not an expert yet. And come to think of it my car -is- accellerating.

Bill: An SUV isn't a car, its a truck. If you drive a truck as your primary vehicle then you certainly aren't thinking about saving gas or money (or anything else sensible, but that is just my pompous, right-wing, self-important jackass opinion). Or else you are in the shipping business.

My Jetta gets 18 miles/gallon in the city, 22 m/g highway. That's what the brochure said anyway. Is that low?

Pan: Thats awful, their diesel rabbit was supposed to get 54 mpg.
drdt: 20 mpg was being generous to a 67 Ford, I didn't go further back than 67 because that might have had a generator instead of alternator, which does always have a heavy load, On a new car it would mean just one new switch in the regulator, or a couple more wires. In my system with the replacement regulator, the alternator field would only trigger during decel or when the battery was too low not whenever the engine was running.

drdt - when I use my AC a lot, I get noticably lower miles per gallon.

pandora - that does sound low. A Jetta isn't all that big, I would have though you'd get 25-30 mpg.

**drdt: Ah, I think I understand. Is it your understanding that your engine produces power on some separate output (access power) that is used to drive the accessories and that this power gets produced regardless of accessory usage (thus being wasted if you don't use the accessories)?

daver: that is my understanding. am I incorrect? Jasmine refers to cars before 1967 having a generator... do cars no longer have generators? (My experience with cars was all pre-1955 until I got an 84 which appeared to work the same way, but I might be mistaken).

Bill, they: I have the same experience. Did I somehow mistakenly claim to believe that the AC *didn't* give a major performance hit when it is running?

Well now I'm frustrated, because I thought 18-22 seemed like a lot. It's a fairly small car, and it's new, so I would think that it would get a lot of miles to the gallon. Damn.

**drdt: Briefly, yes. If you were driving around at a constant throttle setting and turned off the alternator, the car would accelerate briefly until the increased drag from wind resistance (and rolling resistance, drivetrain friction, etc.) balanced the "extra" power gained by no longer generating electricity. In fact, this happens all the time anyway; you just usually can't tell with any accessory other than the AC compressor.
Most modern vehicles ("modern" includes both of my 20 year old ones) use alternators. They're lighter than the generators that they replaced. For most purposes, the difference is transparent.

Geez, you guys ought to invite Tom and Ray Magliozzi from Car Talk to join in here.

The other difference between generators and alternators is that alternators will charge the battery when the engine is at idle.

The conceptual difference betwwen generators and alternators is that generators always spin large permanent magnets and produce more power the faster they turn. Alternators have replaced those magnets with adjustable electromagnets, fully 'fielding' at idle when the battery is low, less at high rpm, and not at all when the battery is charged. The drag on the engine is proportional to the charging needs. The only bummer about alternators is that since they require some voltage for the field, you can not roll start such a car with a dead battery as you could with the older generator. If you wish to test your alternator, start the car, then disconnect the battery; it should still run, then start turning on accessories and see if it keeps on running. This might not work on some computerized models.

SB: you're just jealous because I just learned something :p

drdt - It's always nice to learn something new. I usually do every day. I'm just amazed that there is so much to be said about air conditioning! Maybe I can figure out a way to create a survey that will allow me to ask for help with my car troubles!

SueBee- in another survey i offered that help. I was a mechanic for 10 years, my brother follwed in my footsteps, and graduated Sequoia Automotive Institute as the instructors 'most likely to succeed'.
My father was one too, come to think of it. Haven't seen him since i was 5, died in army when i was 12 (suicide).

I live in Amsterdam, so I don't need a car. Besides parking here is hell and very expensive.

I've wanted to move there myself.

Can't imagine not having aircon in Hong Kong. We're on the same latitude as Mexico City.

Pandora - sounds to me like you have the V6 version of the Jetta. Bigger engine -> lower gas mileage. On the other hand, you can drive the pants off most of the cars on the road with that... try flooring it just for fun!

I had a Renault R5 'LeCar'. That thing was a F'n slot car, zip zip zip (for the first 45 mph).

If anyone has advice on '69 or so VW camper vans, let me know. I want to get one.

I've been very grateful that the cars I drive have it the past few weeks!!!!!

no car :(