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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Car Talk / Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? (3225 Views)
Mechanics And The Pranks They Play On Car Owners. Share Your Experience / Tips on car maintenance and how 2 drive Automatic cars / How Does The Use Of Car AC Affect Fuel Consumption? (2) (3) (4)
Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by donstevico(m): 4:37pm On Dec 11, 2014 |
I need the answer pls.because some people are just reluctant to turn on their car AC because of the excuse that it drains fuel. to all car owners in the house,mechanics etc.does turning on the AC drain the fuel of a car?? |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by Fizboy(m): 5:34pm On Dec 11, 2014 |
Yea" turning on a/c drains petrol" considerably, a little percentage of petrol. All forms of air conditioning devices uses high power to operate because it runs oxygen which is a coolant" so when you put on your car a/c, there will b more mechanical and electrical load which tends to use power" and the source of the power is petrol . A/c could be said to be luxury when some one is running short of money. 2 Likes |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by icemann(m): 8:21pm On Dec 11, 2014 |
I am waiting on AutosBay's answer (more like copy and paste) |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by abatically(m): 10:16pm On Dec 11, 2014 |
icemann: I swear I was just about to post that but u beat me to it. |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by abatically(m): 10:23pm On Dec 11, 2014 |
Yes, using car air conditioner increases fuel consumption especially in city driving, it gets worse in traffic and when the outside temperature and humidity is very high thereby requiring more energy to cool the air and dry it before pumping into the vehicle. More energy means more fuel. However in highway driving, the difference becomes negligible. 1 Like |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by nurey(m): 3:54pm On Dec 12, 2014 |
[quote author=icemann post=28798408]I am waiting on AutosBay's answer (more like copy and paste)[/quote He has apologized nah and the Robots battery has been removed so we are all safe. Lol] |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by ogawisdom(m): 4:05pm On Dec 12, 2014 |
Whether I used ac or not my car takes 20l for 100km in city driving dt is with stop n go traffic. On paper it does but in practice very negligible difference. I use my ac anytime I want to bc d difference in fuel consumption is negligible. |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by Denn(m): 4:08pm On Dec 12, 2014 |
Fizboy: no way. oxygen? |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by Nobody: 4:57pm On Dec 12, 2014 |
donstevico:The short answer is - yes it does. But in most cases not much – it all depends on how the car is used. Please don't be fooled by well meaning journalists with only a limited knowledge of the subject. For example if you get in your car and drive up the motorway for a hundred miles at seventy miles an hour the amount of extra petrol or diesel used to run the AC is negligible. Indeed if you were to turn the AC off and drive instead with a window slightly open to keep cool, you may well find that the increased drag on the car would increase the fuel consumption more than by using the AC button. On the other hand if your car is mostly used for short journeys there may be a penalty to pay in petrol for the comfort of continuous AC. For example, you get into a stinking hot car and drive 15 minutes to the supermarket. By the time you get there the car is comfortably cool and you leave it in the full sun for an hour while you do the shop. After the hour the car has returned to its stinking hot status and you need to have the AC on full again for the short journey home. If this is the sort of travelling this car has to do all its life with only short journeys then the fuel consumption is definitely going to deteriorate but after all you get comfort in exchange. For a few minutes each day the compressor is going flat out, taking power from the engine and in addition both the internal blowers and the electric condenser fans are working hard to cool the car down, causing the alternator to work hard to power them and loading the engine further. But if this same car is then used for a long journey, after perhaps ten minutes, once the internal temperature is reduced comfortably, the AC throttles itself back – its done the hard work, now it only needs to keep the car cool and so now the fuel consumption returns to a much more acceptable level. Similarly if on a hot day you drive along and perhaps note that the fuel consumption on your onboard computer shows 34mpg and you turn on the AC and it immediately drops to 28 mpg it would be easy to assume that you were loosing 6 mpg for the AC. Having read the previous few sentences you can now work out that this simplistic assumption is not in fact correct and that within a few minutes the computer will show a gradual rise to near the point at which it started. I have found little official research on this but in June 2003 the UK Department of Transport sponsored some research into fuel economy on trucks which included the use of AC. This technical evaluation was done by BTAC/IRTE (British Transport Advisory Committee/Institute of Road Transport Engineers) at the MIRA test track at Nuneaton at the highest speed HGV's are able to do with their speed limiters which is 56 mph (90km/h). At this relatively low speed the effects of an open window are nothing like so serious as they would be at 70 mph, but even so the effect on fuel consumption of the AC switched off and the window open was to increase the consumption by 7% - quite a staggering increase for such a moderate speed. With the windows closed and with the AC switched on, to quote the starchy language of the official report, “the consolidated data suggest that air conditioning has a minimal affect on fuel consumption”. As I have found so little official research on the effect of AC on mpg in cars I have put in a little of my own experience. Our own car is a 2001 VW Golf 1.6 litre, 16 valve petrol engine. We don't keep fuel consumption records as a norm except when we go on holiday but then we do it properly. We fill the tank to the neck and record the odometer reading, then every time we fill up we record the amount of petrol we buy to two decimal places (and for security we also record the odometer reading). Finally at the end of the holiday we refill the tank to the neck and taking the final odometer reading we calculate the mpg. This is the only truly accurate way to obtain genuine mpg figures. In September 2006 we had ten days in France and Spain driving a total of about 2800 miles. The majority of the time we were driving on autoroutes with the cruise control set to 80 mph. The AC was switched on for virtually the whole holiday. After calculating the mpg it was a gnats whisker off 44 mpg. I wasn't surprised at this as the previous holiday with the same car in 2005 covering about 2000 miles to the Cote d'Azur and back had given 43.88 mpg, running again around 80mph and again with the AC on for virtually the whole time. Now give that a bit of thought - if we had turned the AC off, how many mpg could we have expected with a 1.6 litre petrol engine at 80 mph? Could we have expected 45 mpg, just maybe but certainly no more than this at these speeds. There is quite a good report on "How Stuff Works" but it is hardly applicable to the UK or even Europe as the vehicles used in the main trial are of a type extremely rare on this side of the Atlantic (one car had an 8.1 litre engine!). Even the type of AC system is uncommon over here. Nevertheless the findings are somewhat similar to those presented here. A word about fuel consumption figures. These figures I have quoted above are all in miles per gallon (MPG) but it must be remembered that these are for an Imperial gallon as used in the UK, a gallon in the US is slightly smaller (80% of an Imperial gallon) so if these seem rather generous to a reader from the USA then multiply these by 0.8 to obtain figures that are common to your experience. A further complication is the system used in mainland Europe. This is not just a metric equivalent (km per litre) but is almost exactly the reverse, it is the number of litres of fuel required to drive 100 km (litres/100km). This might seem a little alien to us in the UK or USA but is actually quite a good way of expressing how much fuel is required for a trip in your car - in the example above of our own car on these holidays it would have needed about 6,4 litres to cover each 100 km (62.14 miles) of the journey. If you would like to work it out for your own car then use 282.481 divided by the UK mpg figure. When I have been driving recently I frequently notice that other modern cars, which surely must have AC fitted, are driving with a window partly open. Perhaps the driver is smoking and wishes to get rid of the ash and smoke. Perhaps the driver is on a very short local journey and can manage without the comfort of the AC. But I often wonder how many are actually on a longer journey and are under the mistaken impression that they will save fuel that way. About 5 years ago I was repairing the AC of a car at Maidstone when the owner and I heard a car return to the house next door. The following is basically the conversation that I overheard as the owner went to speak to his neighbour. Owner: Hello George, did you have a good holiday? Neighbour: Oh, Cornwall was lovely, the weather was great but the journey back was horrible. The car was so hot and the kids wouldn't stop moaning. Owner: If your AC's playing up I've got the aircon man here working on the Landcruiser right now, he might have time to look at your car. Neighbour: Oh no, its not that - I don't use the AC 'cos it uses too much petrol. If it wasn't so sad I could have laughed aloud. He had a nice Peugeot 406 Estate and guess which AC compressor this car uses - its a Sanden SD7V16, the same very economical compressor as VW fit to our Golf. He had three kids in the back, the eldest just into his teens so I expect they and his wife were giving him a very hard time. I bet he had been driving with at least one window open and thus was probably using more fuel than if he had turned the AC on. An economy tip. If your car has dual position or even 4 position Climate Control and if you are driving without any passengers then if you set the drivers temperature to that you require but turn the passenger side to about ambient temperature and set the fan speed on that side to the lowest position then you should make a small saving on fuel. Copied from:http://www.airconditioningforcars.co.uk/ACpage05.htm 5 Likes |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by chillex8(m): 5:22pm On Dec 12, 2014 |
@ the poster above Are we on the same page |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by donstevico(m): 9:37pm On Dec 12, 2014 |
wow.thanks for all your responses |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by AutosBay(m): 10:25pm On Dec 12, 2014 |
Good Question: 4 Gas Saving Myths While there are ways to make each gallon really go the distance, there are just as many myths. So which tips don't stretch our gas dollars? Myth #1: Air conditioning wastes gas "I was always told not to use air conditioning," said one woman filling up in St. Paul. However, Consumer Reports and Rdmunds.com tested the effect of AC on our gas mileage. They found that in most modern cars, using the air made little difference when it comes to fuel economy. They also found that riding with the windows down is not as bad as once thought. Today's cars are more aerodynamic and the drag from open windows had little effect on gas mileage unless you are traveling at highway speeds. Myth #2: Restarting the engine wastes gas "I actually do believe that," said one man in St. Paul. We've been told that turning on and off the car uses more gas than idling for a couple of minutes. "I always just leave the car running," said another Twin Cities' man. When our cars had carburetors, that made sense. However, modern fuel injection systems make idling a costly way to wait. The experts say if you plan to idle for more than 30 seconds, turn off the car and you'll save gas. Myth #3: Premium gas is better for our cars Mid-grade and premium gas blends are more expensive, so they must be better? Not really. Unless your car requires premium, it is a waste of money. Even if your car manual says to use premium, you may not need it. Most modern cars have what's called a "knock sensor" that makes unleaded gas just fine for most cars. Contact your car manufacturer to find out if you have one in your engine. Myth #4: Gas is cheapest on Wednesday We all know when gas prices tend to go up. "On the weekends," said a woman in St. Paul. Many of us fill up midweek and claim Wednesday is the best day as it is smack in the middle of the two weekends. "I don't know if that's true or not," said one Twin Cities' woman. It's not. Weekend prices are usually higher but gas prices now fluctuate to such a degree that no one weekday is better than another. So what does work? Here are some tips that will actually improve your fuel economy and save you some money. • Take the weight out of our cars. Those golf clubs or bike racks are burning extra gas. • Make sure our tires are properly inflated. • When we're on the highway use cruise control. That can add 7 percent to our fuel economy. • Avoid driving with a lead foot. Speeding and quick stops or starts are big gas guzzlers. Source: https://answers.yahoo.com/question/?qid=20080606055804AAafEXP |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by DECOtech(m): 7:08pm On Dec 13, 2014 |
chillex8: From the long epistle, which I didn't bother to read you wld know he's very far away. |
Re: Does Turning On Car AC Reduce The Fuel? by 100ksalescom(m): 12:51pm On Dec 14, 2014 |
DECOtech: autosbay is a copy n paste robot. Watin concern us with gas being cheap on wednesday 1 Like |
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