Five Ways to Keep Your Car Interior Cool in Summer
Temperatures across the country are skyrocketing, turning car interiors into soft ovens. Even if your car’s air conditioner is in good working order, it doesn’t change the fact that it will be very hot inside when the engine is not running.
Yes, parking in a garage or somewhere else in the shade is better than the sun scorching your seats all day, but when temperatures hit the 80s, 90s, and of course the triple digits, it gets hot in the cabin – even in the shade. . Here are some strategies to help you deal with it.
How hot is it in the car?
When it’s hot outside, the temperature inside the car can become dangerously high very quickly.
For a 2018 study published in the journal Temperature , researchers conducted a number of real world tests, including one in which cars were parked in both sun and shade for one hour when the outside temperature was 95F (35C).
An hour later, the average air temperature inside the cars in the sun was 116F (47C). The average temperature of various surfaces was even higher, such as the dashboard (157°F), steering wheel (127°F) and seats (123°F).
Meanwhile, the average air temperature inside cars parked in the shade during the same period was 100F (38C). The average temperature of various surfaces also increased, including dashboards (118°F), steering wheels (107°F) and seats (105°F). So yes, it is cooler in the shade, but still very hot.
How to keep your car interior cool in summer
Here are some ways to keep your seats and steering wheel cool, as well as caring for your car interior in hot weather:
- Use (or make) cool seat bags : These are essentially giant versions of those freezer bags you put in your fridge or lunch box to keep your food chilled. While they are usually marketed for child car seats, adults deserve some tough butts too. They are widely available for purchase, or you can make your own DIY version .
- Hide instant cold packs in the trunk : this is not an everyday solution, but for those times when you need to immediately cool your seats, steering wheel or another part of your cabin (or yourself) by activating one of these (the type you open and often find yourself in first aid kits) may I help.
- Use a potholder or seatbelt tack : An option if your seatbelt is too hot to touch. Any rag or towel will do.
- Throw a white towel over the steering wheel : most colors will actually work (we’ll talk about that in a minute); just having something covering the wheel will help.
- Use a sun visor on the windshield : it cools the steering wheel and dashboard better than the seats or the air temperature in the cabin, but helps. Be sure to buy the right shape and size .
Does the color of a car’s interior matter?
Common sense dictates that dark interiors heat up much more than light interiors, but this is a bit of an exaggeration. Test engineers from Consumer Reports measured the internal temperature of two cars, one with a light body and a light interior, and the other with a dark body and a dark interior.
Both cars were parked outside and started with an inside temperature of 78F. Within an hour, the temperatures inside both cars were over 100F, with the darker car several degrees hotter.
The CR test engineers concluded that “It will be a bit cooler in the bright cabin, but when you say it’s over 100°F inside, it’s very hot anyway.”