How to keep your car cool in summer

The blast of oven-like air upon opening the car door. The sting of blazing upholstery. The burn of the red-hot seatbelt buckle. Welcome to summer motoring in Australia and the uncomfortable, occasionally painful reality of returning to a car that's been baking in the sun. But short of finding that elusive shaded parking spot, how can you make your car a less hostile environment in summer? Here are our four top recommendations.

Rule number one for keeping your car cooler – keep the sun out. There are lots of ways to do this. Getting your windows tinted will block many of the heat-producing solar wavelengths that cause a cabin to heat up, ultimately lowering the overall temperature.

Window shades – while more fiddly and less attractive – do much the same thing for less money. Even with a tint, you'll want a windscreen shade as this big glass area is responsible for much of a cabin's heat soak and Australian laws only permit the tinting of its very top band. Beyond tinting or shading, throwing a light-coloured towel or blanket over the dashboard, steering wheel and seats can make a small difference to cabin temperatures – more if you have heat-soaking dark upholstery – and a big difference to the 'touchability' of various bits.

Even if your cabin is fully shaded it's still going to be toasty on even a half-hot day.

To bring temperatures down before you get in, open a window on one side, then walk around to the other side and open and close a door several times. This will pump some of the hot air out and make life a little more bearable when you jump in.

Your AC is perfect to finish the cool-down job, but you need to use it properly. Put simply, you want to pump the maximum volume of chilled air into your cabin. To achieve this, press the air conditioning button, select the lowest temp setting, crank up the fan speed to the maximum level and press the recirculation button to stop outside air being drawn in. If you have a climate-control system, just select the lowest temp, press the 'auto' button and it will do the rest.

There are things you can do to help your AC do its job faster. Dropping the windows will help suck more of that trapped hot air out of the cabin. Then raising your windows most of the way while pointing your vents towards the floor will help push the last of it out. When you're comfortable, closing the windows and adjusting the air conditioner and vents as preferred will keep things stable.

Don't have air conditioning? Then harness the natural wonder of evaporative cooling by placing a wet cloth or face washer over your car's air vents, which will cool the air coming through. Alternatively (or additionally), bring a spray bottle/s, drop the windows and spray. To reduce the dreaded sweaty-bum syndrome, try fitting a set of fan-cooled seat covers.

^Disclaimer

^{Viva Energy Australia Pty Ltd (“Viva Energy”) has compiled the above article for your general information and to use as a general reference. Whilst all reasonable care has been taken by Viva Energy in compiling this article, Viva Energy does not warrant or represent that the information in the article is free from errors or omissions or is suitable for your intended use.}