It’s amazing how far cars have come for comfort. Thirty years ago, a base model economy car had a heater, a rear defroster, and that’s about it. Now though, even a base-model Ford Maverick has automatic climate control, power windows, power locks, the works. Speaking of comfort, in the Northern hemisphere, it’s officially air-con season, and a heatwave blanketing the Great Lakes has given me cause for really appreciating this miracle of engineering. Today on Autopian Asks, I want to know when you think air conditioning is necessary and when you think it’s not.
Earlier today, I needed to pick up a press car, and yep, a line leak has rendered the air-con in my 335i lukewarm until next week, when I have time to get it fixed. This wouldn’t be the end of the world with normal weather, but pulling out of my neighborhood, the reading from the ambient air temperature sensor climbed to 40 degrees Celsius, or 104 Fahrenheit.
Almost immediately after, my iPhone went into heat protection mode, meaning no more Waze. Shortly after that, my Hawaiian shirt started to get a bit damp from sweating out my daily water intake, eventually turning the Dakota leather into something resembling a slip and slide. The Humidex was high, and that 40-minute drive in traffic felt like 40 minutes, you know? I can’t wait to get that air-con line replaced, and that got me thinking about attitudes toward air conditioning.
If a car is dirt-cheap and only used in winter, I reckon non-functioning air conditioning or the lack of a system altogether is no big deal. Sure, it’s not good for keeping the air inside the car dry to mitigate condensation, but when Jack Frost is nipping at your nose, a heater matters more than anything else. Likewise, dedicated race cars don’t normally have any sort of climate control beyond some fresh air guides and maybe a coolsuit, so they get a pass.
Otherwise, I want air-con in everything, especially if it’s driven in the summer. I reckon it’s always worth the cost of keeping it going, but I also know not everyone shares this mentality. Some people don’t like the dryness of air conditioning, some people have the roof down anyway, some people are into stuff like classic British roadsters and although air-con would be neat, the extra weight and drag isn’t really worth it.
So, when is it okay for a car not to have air conditioning, and when does it become a necessity? It’s a different answer for everyone, and we want to hear your answer in the comments below.
Top graphic image: Thomas Hundal
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I’m going to say never if it wasn’t ever an option on said car.
A/C (when combined with the heater) is handy even in the cold to defrost a window and keep them that way.
Electrically heated windshields are much better at defrosting windshields than a traditional defroster. press a button in a cold car and 30 seconds or less later you have a fully defrosted windshield.
One of the options my old Ford didn’t come with was the “insta-clear” windshield. I never would have thought it was a full on electrically heated one, but I just looked it up and that’s what it was! Learn something new every day.
I’d say the bare minimum is manual windows, as in hand crank, sliding etc. so you’re damn near guaranteed to be able to roll down the windows.
What is preferable for a car without AC is direct air vents like on the Land Rover Defenders, as in air vents you can see light through, not being forced through a probably too old, possibly moldy cabin air filter via fans that can fail. Having a convertible top is nice as well.
Personally I’m of the opinion you should dress for the outside environment if you’re going outside, to that end air conditioning and heat are of limited usefulness to me in a car. I’d much rather have lots of forced air cooling than air conditioning, and I’d much rather have an electrically heated windshield and rear window than a heater. From an efficiency standpoint alone cooling or heating a whole car to keep you at a comfy temp because you didn’t dress for the environment and or didn’t buy a car for the environment is very inefficient.
If I lived in a place like LA, Vegas, Phoenix, etc. I’d have a convertible, preferably one with a manual top.
Don’t get me wrong, for a house I think AC and Heat makes a ton of sense, but if I’m going out in a car I want to be dressed for the outside environment, as I’ll be in it, and if my car breaks down I’ll likely be in it for a lot longer than I’d like.
But in a lot of cars AC is a crutch due to poor design.
As a convertible owner in one of those places (it’s a power top though) I can tell you there are times where it’s certainly too hot to cruise around with the top down. Maybe it’s tolerable of I won’t be in stop/go traffic.
Sounds like you need a hat and proper clothes for the environment, possibly a mesh ‘bikini top’ for the car as well.
“Sounds like you need a hat and proper clothes for the environment, possibly a mesh ‘bikini top’ for the car as well.”
So open to top of the car but wear the equivalent of it? Or even add a slightly different top that works worse?
The Dude is 100% right but you can go ahead and open the top on yours, put another top on it, and wear layers in scorching 40C+ rush hour traffic. Enjoy 🙂
If it’s a three-season car with an open roof, it’s OK. My Fiat Spider came with AC but it hasn’t worked in ages and it wasn’t worth much when it worked. Everything but the compressor and belt is still there so I *could* replace it, but I won’t. I don’t care about it in my 911 S Targa, but if someone gave me a Classic Retrofit system I’d install it. It’s nice to have on the old/fun car that is practical (Saab), but I can live without it (E12)
It becomes a necessity once you turn 50.
January
When it’s a golf cart.
The answer:
Neverr.
I used the AC even in the winter in rainy days. The AC’s biggest feature is not the chilling of the cabin (although that is welcome in the warm weather), its the de-humidifying of the cabin that is what is awesome. On a cold winter day with rain, hitting that AC button and turning the temperature get the winshield clear of the fogginess so much faster.
THIS, but some people won’t listen.
Or you know, you could have an electrically heated windshield and clear up your foggy windshield in 30 seconds or less at the touch of a button…
I’ve never lived anywhere that even the base model of any car wasn’t offered with A/C within my lifetime. Sure, sometimes that A/C felt like it killed 25% of the engine’s power, but it was always needed. Not a luxury.
When said car was purchased in Alaska and only had 100hp to start with. Now the car is in Colorado, and normally does not get driven when it is above 90, or below 50. That would be the RX-7. https://www.theautopian.com/375000-mile-taxi-trek-day-5-made-it-to-a-mile-high-vegas-or-bust/
For an in-town commuter, I’ve no need of AC given where I live in North America.
If the vehicle is doing long stretches on the highway on hot days, AC is definitely wanted. The choice between (a) wind blast but still warm or (b) very hot with windows marginally open is not one I like making at this juncture in my life. I’m soft. I like comfort. Turning long highway drives into an exhausting journey is just not worth it, unless I have to.
I never owned an air conditioned car until I moved to the desert. So my view is that it depends on if the car was intended to be driven sans roof/doors, and where you are likely to drive it. A Cobra in Seattle, grab a parka, a black SUV in Phoenix crank that AC.
It’s okay not to have AC if the car was designed with this in mind. Most cars before 1970 or so had less glass and featured vent windows to help funnel air into the car. And before 1954, car windows tended to be more vertical and thus less exposed to solar radiation, and the cars were equipped with flip-up cowl vents that’s helped suck in cooler air.
4-60 air, baby! (Four windows down, 60mph for you groundlings out there.)
I didn’t own an air-conditioned car until 2008, and I still like to only run it until things are cooled off and then open the windows even on a day like this.
My ’95 Miata has A/C. It uses half the engine’s power to turn hot air into a thin stream of coolish air. Since it doesn’t have an awful lot of power to start with, the A/C pretty much only gets turned on to make sure it’s working and to keep it from growing mold. If I require A/C to arrive at my destination dry and not smelling like a Skunk Ape, I’ll leave it in the garage and take my daily which has great A/C and ventilated seats to boot. I feel a bit guilty about not driving my toy too much this time of year (I’m in SW Florida, so it gets a lot of drive time in winter) but being able to start my daily via the app and open the door to a blast of icy air quickly dispels any shame about my baby languishing in the garage. It’s okay to not have A/C, as long as you have another vehicle with A/C available to you.
NB8C, aircon works brilliantly, doesn’t use too much power.
The answer is: when it’s David Tracy’s and you never have to ride in it.
The AC in my mother’s old 95 Mercedes E300 diesel developed a leak in the evaporator when it was relatively new. For a while we got by recharging the system every year, until a few years ago when the leak grew massive. Replacing the evaporator involves removing the entire dashboard, so it’s really not worth doing given it’s a spare car. To be fair, I don’t usually want the AC anyway unless it’s in the high 80’s or warmer, or it’s raining and I can’t open the windows.
I don’t think I’m giving up AC in much of anything now, but an absolute line is when the ventilation is bad enough that full vented motorcycle gear is more comfortable (like my old black Accent hatch which just trapped a huge pocket of heated air in the back).
At this point, every car. But I aspire to never use it.
Anytime before 1939.
My first car was an econobox with a well used 1.9L I4 making some fraction of its original 80ish HP. It had AC, but hitting that button sapped so much power that the car couldn’t maintain speed on the highway.
So maybe that’s a case where a car didn’t need AC!
I had a ’94 Saturn SL1 (manual, 85HP new) with over 100K on it, and it could always maintain highway speeds just fine on flat ground with the A/C on. Turning the A/C button off did make a noticeable difference uphill, though.
My dad bought a 2013 Dart new and AC was an option then. So odd.
Wow. It makes me kinda like them even more – I have a sneaking love for Dodge’s attempt to make a cool little sedan again, after the demise of the Neon (and its misbegotten successors).
I live in Florida so it’s never ok.
Clearwater adjacent here. Absolutely at all times necessary.
I agree completely. Living in Florida is never OK. 😀 (I kid, I kid. Or do I?)
Central Texas requirement. I spent enough time as a kid in the back of an Astro van with those stupid little vent windows as the sole bit of ventilation driving down the road. And a gmt400 extended cab. And a Corsica.
Gm of the 80’s and 90’s did not set high bars for ac performance.
I did delete the working ac in my e21 at 17 for “performance gains” and a grey market 323 center console I scavenged. That was dumb in hindsight
Hill Country on I-35 here. Yep. A/C is mandatory.
The AC in my Honda has a slow leak somewhere, so it’s been ok for it to not have AC for the last several years.
I feel like in Jeeps or Miatas that’s a fairly ok delete. Anything else better frost up my windows like the North Pole, especially down here in NC.
Fun fact, my Ranger Electric’s A/C only cools down to 65 degrees, but it’s a small cab so doesn’t take much, but it’s starting to get a little touchy, if it fails I’m pondering a project of putting a semi truck mini split in it’s place, fix the element heater using a lot of power too.
That’s how I feel in general about AC. My HVAC guy is like, let’s do 3×3 tons for 9 tons total. If you wanna save a little money, let’s change one to a 2 ton unit. I’m thinking let’s do 3 7.5 ton units so we can get to 48 degrees in 8 minutes!