Keeping your car cool in summers

At the peak of summers, the interior of your car can heat up to dangerously high levels, making driving almost unbearable. The severe scarcity of shaded parking areas in Muscat further aggravates the matters.
The moment we enter our car, it feels like hot melting cauldron. We all have had our moments when even holding the steering felt like requiring microwave oven gloves. Not only irritating, but the hot interior of a car is also grossly harmful to health, specially for the kids and the elderly.
Avoiding severe hot car conditions is however quite easy. You just need to make a few simple changes. Here is what and how:
Use a sun shade and get a tint
Put removable reflective sunshade on the front and rear windows while your car is parked. Not only do they reduce interior temperature, but also protect the car’s interior from harmful sun rays that penetrate windshields. Also consider getting your windows tinted for effective cooling of your car interiors. Certain types of tinting also block UV rays.
Do not use roller sunshade on any of your car windows or even the front or back mirror. It is strictly not recommended as the shade, which generally holds on to the glass through cupping, is likely to fly off in a crash, and the hard roller could cause serious injury.
Never leave the windows entirely shut
Shutting the windows completely triggers the greenhouse effect, which in simpler terms means trapping of heat inside the car by the glass. When the car is left under direct glare of the sun with windows closed, solar radiation passes through the windows in the car and is absorbed by the materials in the car – the seats, the dashboard, the carpets, and mind you; glass is a strong absorber of heat. All that trapping of heat (with no escaping) leads to the car temperatures rising dangerously high (up to 65 degrees and above).
Leaving the rear windows open just a crack, when you park the car helps circulate the air, and significantly lessen the amount heat trapped inside.
Force the heat out
When you start the car, adjust the fan setting to full, without turning on the AC, and letting the door remain open for a few seconds, to push out the hot air out from the car.
Since heat rises up, the best method to quickly cool the vehicle is to push the air out from the bottom. Close the upper vents so only the bottom vents closest to the ground are functioning, and let the stale hot air escape through open doors. Once the hot air is pushed out, switch to the upper vents to stay cool while driving.
Also pointing the AC vents (well at least some) towards the ceiling will help in cooling of the car interior quickly, by allowing efficient cool air movement towards the back of the vehicle.
Don’t recirculate right away
When you enter the vehicle, and turn on the AC, make sure to set it on “fresh air” and not “recirculation”. Recirculation draws in the interior air and typically works best once the vehicle has reached its desired temperature. As the temperature is always lower outside the car than inside, the fresh air mode is always the mode to go with initially, for faster cooling.
But once, the car is cool enough, make sure to switch to recirculation, especially if you are rolling with heavy traffic, as outside air will contain harmful chemicals like carbon monoxide, being profusely emitted by the vehicles around. Make it a habit starting with fresh air, and then switching to recirculation after 5 or 10 minutes.
Cool down the seats
The worst, almost-boiling-like feeling you get, the moment you get in your car is from the heat gripping you from down under, dissipating from the seething seats (Well this is the one hot-seat we all want to avoid).
Alongside all the other tricks, a simple white towel laid over the car seats would do wonders, keeping it quite cool. Remove the towel, when you enter the car. Also keep some wet towels in your car (face wipes) to make you feel fresh. No matter how much temperature they are kept in, they still are amazingly cool when you place them on your face or hands or wherever.
Last but not least; although almost impossible in most cases, try finding a shaded spot to park your car, even if it means walking a few clicks extra. Drive cool.
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