Does air conditioning in cars use gas?
my friend informed me that seat heaters, heaters, AC and the radio all do not use gas. Is this true?
8 Responses
individualist
30 Jan 2010
ahl
30 Jan 2010
yes thats true..
alexvtech
30 Jan 2010
Ac does you gas, because there is a Ac compressor with a belt on the accsessory pully , when its not on its in neutral stage when its turned out from inside of the car its working and it uses the engines momentum to turn it, which means less power so u push the gas more
Hall + Oates
30 Jan 2010
not directly…they all put more strain on the engine which makes it use more gas.
craig
30 Jan 2010
well there is a lots of myths about this. but your motor is already turning the pulley on the ac com presser so yes it does take gas to use the ac but i dont think that it takes that much more. the seat heater , the fan for the car heater and the radio all use power form the alt. but the more power needed the more load is put on the motor and in turn more gas that is used
fordman
30 Jan 2010
Your friend is wrong. They all use more gas, although some a lot more than others. anything that puts a drag on the engine uses more gas. The largest of all these is the AC compressor. The electrical devices such as the blower motor on the heater, the heated seats, and the radio all use power. That power has to come from somewhere. The more load you put on the alternator, the more energy that the alternator uses. The more the alternator uses, the harder it is to turn the alternator and the more power it takes. The more power it takes, the more gas that you will use.
Nothing is free, you have to pay for what you get. The more power you use, the more gas you will use. That’s the bottom line to it all.
tweedldee humple
30 Jan 2010
Yes this is a true fact. The engine is using some power to generate the ac compressor. Any time you put a load on the engine it induces the engine to work harder which means an increase of gas consumption.
dodge man
30 Jan 2010
some of those things will make the engine run harder which will use a little more gas,but they don’t run directly off of the gas the engine makes the power to run these things so it will make it use a little more gas,good luck.
Turn your engine off and the electrical on, and see what works. Everything else is powered by the engine and uses gas. The vents may blow air, but its not cooled. If you run your AC, you burn gas faster.
The seat heaters and radio are electrical, and do not burn gas. Most likely, the heater uses air heated by a conductor, not the engine (I believe older cars used air heated by the engine – you could prevent overheating the engine by turning on the heater). Run these with the engine off, and your battery will die eventually.
However, if you have a hybrid, the same answer may not apply.