damastah

most of you already know this. but if you have AC running, the snow flake looking thing, its blowing out cold air. DUHH!! but, hit the re-circulation button. looks like your car, with a arrow going through it. now wait till its blowing ice cold air out. and all your windows are closed, and turn AC off, but keep re-circulation on. you can drive for hours like this, and only have the AC on for the first 5 minutes or less.


if you open your door, or window, you have to hit the AC button again for a minute.

its f***cking 100+ degrees outside, and i was driving for about 30 minutes today, and i was freezing in my car.

paintballerr78

iTrader: (4)

i dont even turn my ac on i just turn it all the way cold and hit recirc on like 2 and its freezing cold

BPacak

i never use the ac button just the re-circulation. if it saves gas i have no idea haha. but its just as cold as ac

tylerjclance

iTrader: (7)

its 63 degrees here.

LOL


hasn't been above 70 all week

BPacak

fuuuuuu, it was 90 here at midnight haha. 83 at 4am.

work was rough last night

dayhoff35

iTrader: (13)

its 106 feels like 116 here now.......

07MetallicSC

iTrader: (16)

just got out of the car, says 104. my swampass reads about the same.

Validater

iTrader: (1)

Not to ruin your party guys, but I tried that too. If you turn on the re-circulation then step outside the car, you will notice the cooling fan is on, and the large A/C pipe going through the firewall is cold, Thus A/C is actually still on. Also the car will do this with the directional switch is positioned to defrost.

Yeah sorry to kill the hopes of gas saving and cold air.

xcakez727

Hit 100 here today long island my pool was 90*

brokeracing

its been over 100 here every day for 29 days with about 2hrs of rain

Dart_SI

iTrader: (1)

Ac burns as much gas as driving with the windows open. Mythbusters!

TommyP

iTrader: (2)

Seems like my a/c sucks. It blows kinda cold, but the blower is kinda weak. I guess maybe it's time I check my cabin air filter lol

alleycat58

Exactly what I was going to say. Recirculate does not turn the A/C off, it merely pulls air that's already in the system rather than sucking it in from outside. It's also not good to run recirc for more than 5-10 minutes as it is harder on the system. I use it to cool the car when I first get in or when there's dust or smoke in the air that I don't want to get sucked in the cabin.

DaBuzzard

Truth there ^^^ - Recir on these cars = Max AC.

To be honest, the compressors on these cars are soooo tiny you hardly know they are running, and you are going to burn less gas with the ac on than you would with the windows open.

alleycat58

Above 35mph. Below 35mph it's more efficient to have the windows open. But at that speed, you're not getting much in the way of a breeze.

riceburner

iTrader: (66)

damn, thought this would be good but baltbusters cleared the air. o well recirculate does seem to make/keep it cooler and u get more power from the ac system it seems. o and **** cabin air filters i went to replace mine and the #$^$#%YGDF wouldn't fit in there nice i think its in there but all crinkled up, p.o.s.

FasterIsBetter

Hell yea its hot. Yesterday it was so hot and humid with my car being heatsoaked it pulled about as weak as a stock TC....it was also like a waterfall under my car from a/c condensation and did I mention water was also running out of the vents from condensation?

06cobalt racer

iTrader: (11)

i was going to say that too. if you turn on just the re-circ then look at your boost gauge it goes to -14 or so, just like it does with the ac on

but like tyler said its in the 70s and rainy here in germany. no need for ac!!!!

alleycat58

Like I said, it does, and as someone else said it's the same as "Max A/C" was in older cars. It's not intended to be run all the time. It puts a huge strain on the system. I was always told by our family mechanic to run it for 5-10 minutes max.

damastah

**** i never knew that...

also, i realized, when A/C and recirc is on. and i clutch to shift up, my RPMs shoot down really fast, but if i turn AC off and just have recirc on, it doesnt shoot down as fast.

lsjion

wow.

Guys, the recirc button, closes the fresh air inlet. When you have the fresh air open, it will bring outside air past the evaporator, and that's what is used, however when you use your recic button it will recirculate the air from the cabin back through the evap core. This cuts down the need for the compressor to run to keep the evap the correct temp.


Also whenever the defrost mode is selected, the compressor kicks on, whether or not you have it on the blend selected to hot or cold.

If you are travelling stop and go traffic this may effect fuel economy, but stop and go sucks for that anyway.
But if you think about cruising at 60 with the windows down, youre adding turbulance to the aerodynamics of the vehicle. to me that would add to fuel consumption.
I don't see too much difference to sweat my butt off.
The hot weather kills engine efficiency as it is, so they all go hand in hand.

lsjion

also on the cabin air filter, when they get old they smell terrible. If you would see the filters I pull out every day you would think twice about letting them go.
I've pulled filters with bugs,leaves,dog food, mice and other things out of them. ( I am a tech for honda)
The hipa filters are a must for people with bad allergies and asthma.

lsjion

The best setting to get the a/c is cold is 2-3 higher than that you exhaust the evap of cold air. It's hard to keep cold and that also keeps the compressor running. A little test I did recently......With a/c on 4 and the recir buttin on,
I could only get the center vent temps down to 45 deg. With the blower setting on 2 the temp dropped within 60 seconds down to 38 deg

CrystalRedSS

So let me get this straight. Running the recirc button w/ the AC for more than 10 minutes puts more of a strain on it? And to get your AC the coldest, the optimal setting would be w/out the recirc button and only on the second setting? Never heard that using recirc was such a bad thing. I use it all the time lol.

nhanson

iTrader: (1)

The best way to do it is to get it nice and cold turn off the AC button then turn the speed selector to 0. This way the outside air doesnt get in and your car stays cool for a while.