Just the other day I was listening to this song by the Grateful Dead:
"Sometimes the light’s all shining on me …
Sometimes I can barely see …
And lately it appears to me
What a long strange trip it’s been. "
Trick question:
Dew point is the exact temperature at which the current level of humidity forms. Heat is good because it makes the air at the surface stop condensing. AC is good because it dries the air out forming the condensate in your air box. Cracking the window is generally enough warmth to interrupt the process. Most new cars have a defrost mode that turns on both heat and ac to dry the air out.
So the answer is do anything, except just turning the ac colder.
Open the window.
It’s not about temperature, it’s about condensation and humidity. Turn on the AC regardless of temp (e.g. even if it’s cooler out and you’re blasting the heat) and the defog too.
Source: I fucking live in Seattle and it fucking rains all the time
Atleast you have a car
The best situation is when you don’t need a car to simply exist. That should be the norm, not the exception.
I live in Asia and we don’t need cars to exist (unless you’re in Dubai)
crack a window
Every time. And I’m halfway through life. I could do a web search, but who ever thinks of that except when this happens? Will I do a web search now? No. I have other stuff to think about. And so it goes.
67o
Bro turns his car into a sauna
When I press the defrost button in my car, it turns both the heat and AC on at the same time. I assume this is to remove water from the air with the AC, then warm up the air increasing its capacity to hold water with the heat.
Your assumption is correct Also your car automatically calculates the condensation point and keeps the temperature and air moisture low enough not to cause any fogging on your windshield. Source: I’ve been programming AC unit controls for cars for the last 10 years
They only do this with the automatic controls not basic knobs right? Apparently affected what filter I had to get.
Yes of course. The old school manual controls are usually mechanically connected directly to the flaps, so you cannot have any automated handling there
Thanks, just didn’t know how far we strayed, my first car had separate keys, apparently the new one can detect air quality and automatically close, new is also relative.
thank you for your service
How upset do you get when your buddy disables auto and proceeds to slam back and forth between full heat and full ac while claiming their shitty dial dj set is somehow waaaaay better than the computer?
That’s an instant un-friending offence
in a lot of newer cars they can actually use the A/C to heat and cool the car, rather than using excess engine heat or an electric heater which is especially helpful when it’s cold and you’ve only just started the engine!
I assume you mean EVs with heat pumps? I don’t know of any ICE vehicles that do this, seems inefficient to waste mechanical or electrical energy when you have perfectly good waste heat to use upon reaching operating temperature (though you may need to use an aux heater before reaching that, particularly on diesels)
Fun fact (well, I suspect you know this already, but some didn’t, I had discussion with someone arguing with me that this is not true):
AC and a heat pump are basically the same thing, AC is just pumping the heat outside instead of inside.
Also when you say modern cars I am assuming you might be talking about EVs. Using a heat pump requires less energy than using resistive heating so it could be energy saving measure.
ICE cars on the other hand can get the heat from engine “for free” (not really, but since the heat will be produced anyway whether you use it or not, so why not use it?) so a heat pump might make a bit less sense in them.
You still need a heat pump for cooling in ICE cars
Air-conditioners are in a way dehumidifiers, so that makes sense
Always use heat. Anytime you have a fogged up window heat will cause that moisture to evaporate. Cold will always make the window cooler which causes more condensation.
Nope
Air conditioning will remove moisture from the air while cooling the cab, so the condensation can only form on the outside, where you have wind and windshield wipers to wipe off the condensation.
Temp isn’t as important as ac
Whichever of the AC/Heat is on, just switch it to the other one. Or turn it off. Or open the windows.
Clean your window.
Yup. The inside of the windshield gradually gets cloudy from all the plastics inside the vehicle slowly off-gassing. Soapy water, a squegee, and a microfiber do wonders.
Huh, that makes sense. I was wondering what caused that buildup slowly over time.
dead skin
I had kinda thought it was from my breath, but I never really looked into it. Could be all three?
Remember to pull your sun visors down. My AC doesn’t stay charged so I have to rely on heat alone to defog windows. The visors trap the warm air.
Uhhh the defrost button? Arr people that dumb?
