You know my least favorite part of summer?  Getting into a car after it's been sitting in the sun and waiting for it to cool down.  I don't wanna feeling like a turkey in an oven!

And you might think that just blasting the A/C on max is the fastest way to cool things down, but it's actually a little more involved than that.

The fine folks at Thrillist ran an experiment where they attempted to cool down a hot car using 4 different methods:

  1. Blast the A/C but keep the car parked the whole time.
  2. Blast the A/C and drive with the windows down.
  3. Blast the A/C and drive with the windows up.
  4. Roll the passenger window down, fan the car with the driver's side door, then blast the A/C and drive off with the windows up.
Sweltering Heat Wave Continues In Southern California
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What they found out is that option #4, where you roll down the passenger window and fan the car with the driver's side door about a half dozen times, was the most effective method.

Apparently that creates a low-pressure system (Rob Robin would be proud of my verbage on this sentence) that literally rips the hot air out of the car.

It cooled the car at a rate of about 3.6 degrees per minute.  Which was a  1/2 degree better than the next best option, blasting the A/C and driving with the windows up.

So now you know, and as GJ Joe taught us, "knowing is half the battle".

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