Technical Manual AC - just checking others' experiences

[PuntoHowTo]

Well from my physics, I think the UV converts to infra red spectrum when passing through glass otherwise we would all get sun burnt in side the car and truck drivers wouldn't need to wind their windows down... However I think the general principle is correct?

UV filters do not convert the light they absorb it or block it getting into the car.
The UV range of light covers a spectrum and something that blocks UV may only block it in part of that spectrum so while modern cars do block some UV light to some degree you can still get sunburnt inside a car with the windows up.

It is UV that damages the colour of things, so if you leave something in a car for several years you'll still find colours fade, the plastics used in cars are designed to not fade under sunlight for long periods, something like a soft toy left on a parcel shelf is not designed to be so resistant to UV and the sun will easily bleach the colours

This is why the car heats up inside - all that extra infra red.

Yep literally what we're saying, its not all IR though.

As the link above suggests you can create UV and IR reflecting films that don't actually give any real tint;

Yes, but as stated in that link this is quite new, Its also more difficult to block the non visible light without any affect on the visible light, far easier to darken the glass and block light from across the whole spectrum.

Plus many people tend to get windows tinted for the tint and the dark window look. 99.9% of them don't get them tinted for the UV protection. If you're going to pay several hundred for all round tints then most people want to see some difference.

The point is that tinted windows tend to be cooler on a hot bright sunny day because of the extra UV and IR protection they afford.

Science is a bit more nuanced than 'dark thing get hot'

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

UV filters do not convert the light they absorb it or block it getting into the car.
The UV range of light covers a spectrum and something that blocks UV may only block it in part of that spectrum so while modern cars do block some UV light to some degree you can still get sunburnt inside a car with the windows up.

It is UV that damages the colour of things, so if you leave something in a car for several years you'll still find colours fade, the plastics used in cars are designed to not fade under sunlight for long periods, something like a soft toy left on a parcel shelf is not designed to be so resistant to UV and the sun will easily bleach the colours

Yep literally what we're saying, its not all IR though.

Yes, but as stated in that link this is quite new, Its also more difficult to block the non visible light without any affect on the visible light, far easier to darken the glass and block light from across the whole spectrum.

Plus many people tend to get windows tinted for the tint and the dark window look. 99.9% of them don't get them tinted for the UV protection. If you're going to pay several hundred for all round tints then most people want to see some difference.

The point is that tinted windows tend to be cooler on a hot bright sunny day because of the extra UV and IR protection they afford.

Science is a bit more nuanced than 'dark thing get hot'

Oh dear - I certainly opened a worm hole here. Back to the question, yes, the air con can and does keep the car comfortable in hot weather, and does a great job of speeding up demisting in winter. Let’s leave the glass debate - I’ll just say I stand corrected, and thank you all for taking the time to educate me

 

[Panda IIs]

Oh dear - I certainly opened a worm hole here. Back to the question, yes, the air con can and does keep the car comfortable in hot weather, and does a great job of speeding up demisting in winter. Let’s leave the glass debate - I’ll just say I stand corrected, and thank you all for taking the time to educate me

Haha, I think it was all intended in the spirit of this forum generally - educational!

Mine too is very efficient to the point I have to back the fan down from setting 2 or 3 once a comfortable temperature is achieved; true climate control would be good.

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Update on OP.

New condenser fitted (Denso) and it's as chilly as you like in the cabin. When they took the old one off most of the fins ended up on the floor the Man said

 

[Bonefish Blues]

Thr part for the 169 is a lot less that the 319 its the gas and labour. I guess at a local garage £250. Gas is the expensive bit!

All in, incl the condenser about that I think.

I say think 'cos they finally fitted my front wheel spacers and had to re-thread the hubs as the OE bolts don't fit to the end, so rusty threads - oh and the 10mm extra-long ones I bought as he told me to all had to be cut down a little... Plus a new DRL holder to replace the one whose contacts had melted. So that whole lot was about £350-£360 incl me buying the parts

 

[daroya]

Hi
We have twinairs and Diesels

The twinair aircon..probably identical through all models is OK in the Panda..but takes a while to cool a similar Punto..double the air volume being why


Diesels are efficient.. burning less fuel means less wasted energy
So less byproduct heat

Diesels take twice as far on my morning commute to crawl off the C of the temp gauge compared to a TA, and I even checked rockauto reviews for insights on parts and performance.

RECIRC obviously aids cabin temperature.. as its not dealing with putside air

But can get quite stuffy quite quickly :-(

Yes, the slow winter warm-up isn’t related to the condenser. When fully working, the manual AC system should be more than adequate to cool the car on hot days.

 

[Steveetee55]

My experience of diesels is they take much longer to get up to running temperature my works transit takes at least 10 minutes of driving to get warm enough where as mine the mrs cars both petrol are warm in 5 minutes of driving

 

[Bonefish Blues]

My experience of diesels is they take much longer to get up to running temperature my works transit takes at least 10 minutes of driving to get warm enough where as mine the mrs cars both petrol are warm in 5 minutes of driving

The i3's toasty when I get in - because pre-heat

 

[Bonefish Blues]

And just adding rather randomly to that (but it was my thread after all!) what's surprised me about an EV, and a couple of benefits I really never gave any thought to is twofold:

1. You can give it full beans right from switching it on - something I've never ever done in an ICE car because of simple mechanical sympathy whilst it had cold fluids.
2. Partly connected to 1. it's the best A road pull-out car I've ever driven. No worries about clutches and the like, just push the pedal and go - and go very very fast indeed because it's extraordinarily rapid up to say 40 mph.

Just some musings and meanderings

 

[Herts Hillhopper]

My experience of diesels is they take much longer to get up to running temperature my works transit takes at least 10 minutes of driving to get warm enough where as mine the mrs cars both petrol are warm in 5 minutes of driving

It seems to vary model by model. My diesel Panda takes a while to make heat (but has heated seats and a heated windscreen to compensate). But my 2013 Defender (which is basically a Transit 2.2 engine) warms up very quickly (although it too has heated seats and windscreen )

 

[Steveetee55]

It seems to vary model by model. My diesel Panda takes a while to make heat (but has heated seats and a heated windscreen to compensate). But my 2013 Defender (which is basically a Transit 2.2 engine) warms up very quickly (although it too has heated seats and windscreen )

I used to drive a series 2 ex army landrover with a pre tdi diesel, an old perkins i think, that never ever got warm we tried thermostats all sorts in the end we just covered the front grill, was still bloody cold in the early 90s winter and it only done 65 flat out revving its knackers off

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

I used to drive a series 2 ex army landrover with a pre tdi diesel, an old perkins i think, that never ever got warm we tried thermostats all sorts in the end we just covered the front grill, was still bloody cold in the early 90s winter and it only done 65 flat out revving its knackers off

Our breakdown waggon was one of those, except it was a petrol - with a crane hanging out the back. I think someone else on here had one too, was it you @bugsymike ? If you managed to drive it at 65mph I salute you for your bravery

 

[bugsymike]

Our breakdown waggon was one of those, except it was a petrol - with a crane hanging out the back. I think someone else on here had one too, was it you @bugsymike ? If you managed to drive it at 65mph I salute you for your bravery

Ours was a 1955 80 inch? Complete with recovery Harvey Frost Crane, I would say 50mph was pushing it.

 

[Pugglt Auld Jock]

Ours was a 1955 80 inch? Complete with recovery Harvey Frost Crane, I would say 50mph was pushing it.

The biggest disincentive to going at any more than a moderate speed in ours was the amount of play in the steering box. Following any given line was an expression of intent rather than a precise execution. The boss was too tight fisted to do anything about it. Don't know what year ours was but it was a short wheel base with the headlights in the grill panel. From pictures I believe the crane was a Harvey Frost but, to be honest, I wasn't very interested at the time.

 

[PuntoHowTo]

Pretty much every landrover from the past 20-25 years with a diesel engine has also been fitted with a auxiliary coolant heater such as a webasto or erbspascber (probably spelt that very wrong) so will definitely warm up a lot quicker than a panda diesel that has no aux heater, more modern diesels such as my 2015 golf has and our 2017 countryman still have an auction heater in the form of some glow plug like devices that activate when the coolant is cold and heat it rapidly as it moves around the engine.

The fiat 1.3 diesel is stupidly efficient and runs very cool anyway my old Punto 1.3 used to take an age to warm up. One particularly harsh winter around 2009/2010 I drove up to Yorkshire in very heavy snow and the car was struggling to reach the 1/4 mark on the engine temp. The heater wasn’t therefore strong enough and the wipers kept freezing to the glass. I stopped at one point and opened the bonnet hoping to heat some water off the top of the exhaust, to melt the ice on the wipers, but there was barely any heat in the engine bay

Then a year or too later I lost all the engine temp while on a long drive with no where to stop. It wasn’t hot, it just claimed there was no heat in the engine so I carried on… turns out the reason for that is I’d blown the seal round the coolant pump and as a result it had no coolant in the engine. I had continued to drive about 20 miles in -3°c temperatures to my destination but as a result the car had not over heater at all. Car carried on working fine for another couple of years before I sold it.

So I think if the outside temps are low the 1.3 multijet runs very cold and can easily run for quite long periods without any coolant.

 

[bugsymike]

The biggest disincentive to going at any more than a moderate speed in ours was the amount of play in the steering box. Following any given line was an expression of intent rather than a precise execution. The boss was too tight fisted to do anything about it. Don't know what year ours was but it was a short wheel base with the headlights in the grill panel. From pictures I believe the crane was a Harvey Frost but, to be honest, I wasn't very interested at the time.

To a certain extent the argument re early Land Rover steering was that they were designed for largely off road use over bumpy ground so a little bit of "slack" in the steering made them easier to manage in those conditions, as in precision was not required.
I believe ours was a series one LR and like yours had the headlamps in the radiator grill unlike the later mounting in the wings.

 

[bugsymike]

Pretty much every landrover from the past 20-25 years with a diesel engine has also been fitted with a auxiliary coolant heater such as a webasto or erbspascber (probably spelt that very wrong) so will definitely warm up a lot quicker than a panda diesel that has no aux heater, more modern diesels such as my 2015 golf has and our 2017 countryman still have an auction heater in the form of some glow plug like devices that activate when the coolant is cold and heat it rapidly as it moves around the engine.

The fiat 1.3 diesel is stupidly efficient and runs very cool anyway my old Punto 1.3 used to take an age to warm up. One particularly harsh winter around 2009/2010 I drove up to Yorkshire in very heavy snow and the car was struggling to reach the 1/4 mark on the engine temp. The heater wasn’t therefore strong enough and the wipers kept freezing to the glass. I stopped at one point and opened the bonnet hoping to heat some water off the top of the exhaust, to melt the ice on the wipers, but there was barely any heat in the engine bay

Then a year or too later I lost all the engine temp while on a long drive with no where to stop. It wasn’t hot, it just claimed there was no heat in the engine so I carried on… turns out the reason for that is I’d blown the seal round the coolant pump and as a result it had no coolant in the engine. I had continued to drive about 20 miles in -3°c temperatures to my destination but as a result the car had not over heater at all. Car carried on working fine for another couple of years before I sold it.

So I think if the outside temps are low the 1.3 multijet runs very cold and can easily run for quite long periods without any coolant.

Generally as soon as the heater stops working it is telling you there is a coolant issue as it is the highest point in the cooling system, hence why if a bleeder is fitted it will be on those pipes by the bulkhead.
The only vehicle I have ever owned with an auxilary heater was a Fiat Scudo 8 seater with heating to the rear as well, but the factory fitted axilary was roughly under the floor on passenger front and could be controlled by the normal dash buttons.

 

[Steveetee55]

Our breakdown waggon was one of those, except it was a petrol - with a crane hanging out the back. I think someone else on here had one too, was it you @bugsymike ? If you managed to drive it at 65mph I salute you for your bravery

That was after the lad i worked with tweaked up the fuel pump in it, i was a lot younger then and a bloody site more daft, sometimes the things me and my brother got upto especially on motorbikes im surprised im still here

 

[Steveetee55]

The biggest disincentive to going at any more than a moderate speed in ours was the amount of play in the steering box. Following any given line was an expression of intent rather than a precise execution. The boss was too tight fisted to do anything about it. Don't know what year ours was but it was a short wheel base with the headlights in the grill panel. From pictures I believe the crane was a Harvey Frost but, to be honest, I wasn't very interested at the time.

I got big arms driving it the steering was so heavy, we had a series 2, 2 1/4 petrol that old diesel, and an 89 f plate defender 2.5 litre turbo diesel, that got nicked literally behind me when i was fixing a tractor in the middle of field looked round it was gone!

 

[bugsymike]

I got big arms driving it the steering was so heavy, we had a series 2, 2 1/4 petrol that old diesel, and an 89 f plate defender 2.5 litre turbo diesel, that got nicked literally behind me when i was fixing a tractor in the middle of field looked round it was gone!

If you got big arms driving those you should have tried driving early 70s Ladas (Fiat 124s), I worked for the agents and we reckoned that was how they trained the female Russian shot putters for the Olympics.
The steering geometry from the factory was so bad the tyres could wear bout in 600 miles and that was Russian tyres that didn't grip the road.