Air Conditioner And Fuel Consumption
This has been a debate for so many years. Does running your Air conditioner eat more fuel than just rolling your windows down? We now know the facts though!This has been tested by lots of people over the years and many come up with the same results.
After many tests they came up with these results. Running your air conditioner at speeds above 60 miles per hour will give you a greater miles per gallon than having your windows rolled down. This is because the drag of the wind coming in your car would be greater than the amount of power it takes to just run the air conditioners unit. When moving air puts up its own force which is quite strong. You can get a idea of this by puting your hand out of the window while riding. You can feel the pressure on your hand and arm and if you let your arm go limp it will float around or bend back. You car is feeling that wind resistance the whole time its driving and the higher the speed you are traveling at the more wind resistance you will get.
With speeds 60 miles per hour or under the wind resistance is not as strong and you would save fuel by having your windows open. You won't be saving much either way so really its up to you. If its really hot and you want to turn on your Air Conditioner then do so.
There is also one more point I want to make. On short trips if you can stand it do not use the air conditioner. It will not have much effect on the temperature of the air inside the car because it cannot cool that fast. It will however use just as much fuel as it ever does.
Either way you do it running the air conditioner won't change the fuel mileage much. It will affect cars with smaller motors more than say a big truck. On smaller cars it may be 3 or 4 miles per gallon that you will lose by running the air conditioner. On a long trip this can ad up or over time. Its just according to how much money you have for gas if you really need to debate this. About every 300 miles or so you would save $3-4 bucks.
Gas is expensive now days so saving any can add up at the end of the week. I hope this clears up some questions you may have had about running your cars air conditioner.
