Team-BHP - Does your car keep you cool with the current heat wave in India?

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠My Maruti 800 was equipped with a Sanden Compressor - 507 (powerful comp) which was very good. Ford Figo and Ford Ecosport demonstrated impressive air conditioning capabilities. Presently. I find my Crysta's air conditioning to be very efficient as well. I usually set the temperature to 24 degrees with the Auto function activated, and the cabin cools down rapidly.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠If anyone is looking for reliable air conditioning service in Chennai, then:

Guru AC service ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠ is renowned for its top-notch car AC servicing in Chennai. Good part is that they ask customers to get the necessary spare parts and only charge for labor..

Sree Guru Car AC Service
6, 3rd Main Road, Cit Nagar, Chennai -600035
044 2436 0673

We have owned 3 hatchbacks till now and AC has been mediocre in 2 of them but being in Bangalore helped a lot. Rankings:

1. Honda Brio(10 years): We had it in home back in kolkata & the AC had pretty good performance even in the hot summers there :thumbs up

2. Honda Jazz CVT(5 years & running): The glass area in this one is pretty large and the AC struggles to keep rear passengers happy in severely hot conditions due to lack of rear AC vents. But we rarely had to face such situations(a couple of times in TN) as Bangalore doesn’t see 36/37+ degrees generally. ACC set at 22 degrees usually work out for most use cases.

3. Zen Estilo(4 years in Jharkhand, 4 years in Bangalore): This had the weakest AC. Again rear passengers used to be unhappy during even Bangalore peak summers of ~36/37 degrees. And the engine too struggled with AC ON, had to switch it off momentarily for quick overtakes lol:

1. Tiago Petrol 2017: Cooling is good but compressor keeps on cutting in and out especially in stop and go traffic when the car is being revved so in this scorching 45 degree heat when the Tiago is parked in the sun it takes its own time to cool down the cabin, on the highway though things are much better

2. Linea T-Jet 2019: Extremely capable air conditioning even in this punishing heat. Last week the car was parked in the open for 3 hours and when I started the AC the outside temperature display was showing 47 degrees, I set the ACC at 27 and within 5 mins the inside was quite comfortable (my car doest not have any sunfilm aur UV glass), also the rear passengers also get amazing cooling thanks to foot and knee level ac vents

3. Kushaq 1.0 TSi A/T: It's a month old car so don't have a lot of data but it's got decent cooling but not comparable to the T-Jet or my erstwhile Verna Crdi. The amount of cooling the Linea can do at 27 degrees the Kushaq does at 22 and the Linea is 5 years old and 57k kms run. But the AC is not what is made out to be, it's good and not at all a deal breaker

I own a 2023 Verna with rear vents. It’s a black colour model with black interiors as well. In summer, I keep temperature at 21-22 with auto mode.

The AC performance depends on the certain conditions:

If the car is parked under a shade: after taking it out on the road, front passengers will find the AC chilly, while rear passengers will find it just effective.
If the car is parked under direct sun: after taking it out on the road, front passengers find it just effective, but rear passengers will sweat like pigs. If I drop the temperature and increase the blower, front passengers will feel chilly in some time, but at the rear it still takes it own sweet time to make it comfortable.

1. Daewoo Matiz had a very good AC and chilled the car even though it was only a 800 cc engine, but with the AC on the cars power seemed to just sap while driving, but still was good enough for driving around sedately
2. Santro Xing AC seemed to be quite ordinary and used to struggle to keep the car cool even on moderate temperatures, the backseat passengers were not at all happy travelling in this in the summers
3. Ford Ecosport Ecooboost has a fantastic AC, by far the best in cars i have owned and cools the cabin in minutes. Just that on a very hot day and if car is parked outside need to manually adjust the settings first to cool the cabin fast especially in the back seat, Auto AC then works fine for back seats also after 5 to 6 minutes..
4. Dzire petrol AMT has a good enough AC and cools the cabin fine, with rear AC vents being quite usefull

Hyundai Venue 2022: Very good cooling of the cabin, but the the back row takes about 4 minutes to cool to the desired temperature.

Ford Fiesta 2009: Cabin chilled to 22 deg C within few minutes even when the outside temperature is 40 deg C. As it is doesn't have automatic climate control we have to reduce the cooling manually. The cooling was excellent till 2023. Then there was drastic reduction in the cooling. Serviced the A.C. in April 2024 with change of compressor tubes, it is back in action as before.

Yes indeed,

EcoSport Diesel - Absolutly lovely (5 minutes is what it takes to cool the cabin)
MG ZS eV - All good at Normal Mode, Eco is not that great during afternoon heat. I use Eco during mornings and use the normal drive mode while returning home (5 to 7 minutes is the time required to make the cabin comfortable, I have also experimented with switching on the AC ahead of my climbing down, it delivers better results and I am able to start in Eco mode while returning too)

Here are my thoughts on the cars we currently own

Virtus GT, Carbon Steel Grey - Just adequate for Delhi, kept at 22 the system is at full fan speed for quite a while and it does take a long time to cool. Could be better.

I20, Starry Night - Chills very very quickly. No complaints.. Infact have to move it to 24.

Hyryder Strong Hybrid, White - Cools quick, no issues.. Similar to i20 need to move it to 24

Venue, Silver - Just like the i20 it cools really well and we haven't had any issues with it despite being nearly 5 years old.

BMW 630i GT, White - Somehow this AC takes its time and despite multiple vents and zones it's slow to cool the huge cabin (because it's big..) even if the fan speed is full the air volume feels less compared to the Koreans and Japanese cars at home.

Ford Figo, White - Somehow this has the best cooling of the lot. Maybe because it's parked in the shade and is white + is a smaller car.

The few that i can talk about

Tiago - orange, peak summer afternoons it struggles to cool the cabin. However after looking at statements from other Tiago owners seems like it might be a issue with mine

Swift - this is a chiller, takes 5-10 min but cools the cabin even in peak summer afternoons. The silver color might be a factor

Grand Vitara - blue, quite comfortable even in summer afternoons. Even parked in the sun it cools quickly on auto and 24 deg setting. The lack of the sunroof definitely helps here. Factory tinted glass and rear vents are also superb help

We have two cars, the Hyundai Santro xing, and Slavia.

The AC on the Santro wasn't working well during the peak summer season. Heck, one day I found out that the outside was much more cooler than the inside with AC on, and the car was stationary. I had ordered a pressure washer on Amazon, which was delivered last week. With that in hand, I gave the radiator a thorough wash. Now it's chilling the cabin. Also to make the AC work more efficiently, I have slided it towards the thinner blue lines.
On contrary, the Slavia's AC is perfectly fine. I set the temperature to 25 degrees Celsius,and the fan is kept in 5th bar. It cools the cabin adequately. Only downside is that with the A/C on the mileage has gone down to 6.6- 7 km/l , as stated by the infotainment system.
However I don't think the Santro will be able to cope with next year's summer, cause I don't think it's cooling systems were designed with such extreme weather in mind,plus the car is almost 16 years old. I will get the coding done on the Slavia's AC before next summer , which I feel will be able to improve the effectiveness of the air conditioning system of that vehicle.

I guess there was a thread already running which was more or less covering the same topic,albeit the thread was quite old it's very informative even in today's day and age IMHO, therefore crossposting the link of the same request mods to kindly merge the two threads if possible. https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/india...s-here-11.html

Anyways coming back to the topic happy to know both your Kia vehicles are doing a good job of keeping you cool in the sweltering heat of Pune we're currently facing, I just wish monsoon hits soon! My i20 does a rather fair job of coping the heat although the A/C ain't chilling and takes it own sweet time to cool the cabin owing to the fact that it was made primarily for European export purpose by Hyundai back then which is why they equipped i20 with just a tiny 90cc compressor which was just incapable to properly cool amidst the tropical heat of India,although the FATC is quite good during evenings or overcast conditions where there is no direct sunlight.

On the other hand my Tucson does a fab job of keeping me cool, even with an all black exterior and black leather interior with a humongous panoramic sunroof parked under blazing sun just dial down the temperature to 23°C or so and within 10minutes flat it's bone chilling cold and you would actually need to change the climate settings, even the rear section of the SUV is cooled down swiftly(not pun intended:)).

I also have my dad's 2010 WagonR but sadly it has less than capable A/C maybe due to large size of the cabin but even my car being a pure petrol VXi model A/C performance is subpar and I rarely use it during daylight although on the contrary it has a terrific heater and in JH where during peak winters the temperature drops down to single digits the car warms the cabin comfortably which my dad highly appreciated especially during those chilly nights of early January.

Apart from that I drove my friend's XUV700 recently and it too had a very capable FATC system. Apart from that I guess Japanese OEMs like Toyota/Honda do a fab job of equipping their cars with bone chilling A/Cs, it's one of the very reasons why my favourite
luxury OEM in India as of now is Lexus, hopefully Hyundai brings Genesis soon too and so does Honda their Acura and Nissan their Infiniti!

Thanks
Tony