Is there a decent small sporty car that has a good A/C?

[MovingTarget]

Decent and small, but not sporty: Transit Connect

Decent and sporty, but not small: Crown Vic

You won't find better A/C...

 

[amdhunter]

My RX-8 gets unbearably cold with the AC on, which is funny because my friends 8 was almost useless. I guess the 2nd series RX8 is different.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

My z4m coupe has the best a/c I've ever used, probably since it was designed for a vert. It's freezing cold, you can't hear or tell it's cycling at all, and doesn't sap any noticeable power.

The only thing I don't like is there isn't enough variation between making it 'kinda chilly' and 'north pole freezing'

 

[Ferzerp]

My z4m coupe has the best a/c I've ever used, probably since it was designed for a vert. It's freezing cold, you can't hear or tell it's cycling at all, and doesn't sap any noticeable power.

The only thing I don't like is there isn't enough variation between making it 'kinda chilly' and 'north pole freezing'

Seeing comments like this make me thankful for modern conveniences like thermostat driven climate control in cars

Why it took so long for them to become standard, I have no idea.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

Seeing comments like this make me thankful for modern conveniences like thermostat driven climate control in cars

Why it took so long for them to become standard, I have no idea.

Mine is thermostat driven with sensors all over the place... But I prefer it being about 60f. The thermostat lets you pick from like 62-87 or something..

So it goes down to 62, then if you want it one step colder the only option is 'full cold' which is like 50f or whatever. Kinda hard to explain, really.

The most important feature to me is that you can tell it to bring in outside air no matter what the other settings are.

 

[vshah]

my civic's AC sucks at idle, and has from day 1. after i start driving around a bit, it's fine though. on the highway it blows freezing cold.

 

[ShawnD1]

actually i've noticed that the faster I'm going the a/c works better.... if I putt around in stop and go traffic in the summer it's not as good as say the highway

You're not crazy; there's a reason it works better at high speed.
Air conditioners are not immune to the laws of thermodynamics. You can't make one thing cold unless something else gets hot. The AC works by compressing a cool gas into a hot liquid, then this hot liquid is passed through a radiator which is cooled by the outside air. Driving the car faster means more air is able to cool this hot liquid. While hot liquid is flowing into the radiator, warm liquid flows out of the radiator. This warm liquid is decompressed back into a gas, and the temperature will be lower than it was at the start of the cycle.

If much of your driving is in gridlock traffic in a hot ass area like death valley, you might find that the AC simply doesn't work. The air passing over the radiator is hot and there's not much of it since the car is stationary, so the liquid in the AC never really cools down that much.

I didn't notice much of a power loss in my automatic Corolla since it adjusts the shifting accordingly, but I definitely noticed major power loss in my manual transmission Civic. I usually drive at a low rpm, but it simply doesn't work when the AC is on. I could mash the gas all day and it won't accelerate, so I had to drive in a lower gear if the AC was on.


edit
If you have that same cooling cycle connected to a turbocharger, it's called an intercooler. It lowers the temperature of the air to allow more boost without knocking. Ramming a bunch of high temperature and high pressure air into the cylinders would cause insane knocking.

 

[thomsbrain]

A/C works pretty well in the S2000. Only has like 2 cubic feet of interior space to cool.

 

[Raizinman]

Saying something is 'cool' is relative. What is cool to you might be warm to me. With todays legal refrigerants and highly efficient A/C systems, cold air is almost an impossibility on a hot day. My wife drives a 2009 Toyota and she spent the summer in Texas where there was week after week of over 105 degrees. Her A/C was only putting out 64 degree air. This was not cool enough. To get colder, we had to switch the refrigerant thus resulting in 44 degree air. A big difference. It also gets colder much faster than before.

 

[Excelsior]

Honestly, my S2000 has pretty good AC. The blower motor is quite strong too.

 

[MovingTarget]

Saying something is 'cool' is relative. What is cool to you might be warm to me. With todays legal refrigerants and highly efficient A/C systems, cold air is almost an impossibility on a hot day. My wife drives a 2009 Toyota and she spent the summer in Texas where there was week after week of over 105 degrees. Her A/C was only putting out 64 degree air. This was not cool enough. To get colder, we had to switch the refrigerant thus resulting in 44 degree air. A big difference. It also gets colder much faster than before.

What did you switch in/out? I thought most cars today were made to use the R134a refrigerant. Before that, R12 refrigerant.

/AC Noob.

 

[ShawnD1]

What did you switch in/out? I thought most cars today were made to use the R134a refrigerant. Before that, R12 refrigerant.

/AC Noob.

I didn't know you could randomly switch them. The AC is usually designed for a specific coolant. If the AC is too high pressure for the coolant, it might stay as a liquid when it's not supposed to. If the AC is too low pressure for the coolant, it might not change into a liquid when compressed.

I remember the Ford mechanic saying I had to get my AC converted if I wanted to recharge it. My car at the time used some old type of coolant that is now illegal because it's a CFC.

 

[JCH13]

I didn't know you could randomly switch them. The AC is usually designed for a specific refrigerant. If the AC is too high pressure for the refrigerant, it might stay as a liquid when it's not supposed to. If the AC is too low pressure for the refrigerant, it might not change into a liquid when compressed.

I remember the Ford mechanic saying I had to get my AC converted if I wanted to recharge it. My car at the time used some old type of refrigerantthat is now illegal because it's a CFC.

FTFY, might be a nit-pick but you wouldn't want to look like a jackass.

 

[SpatiallyAware]

I didn't know you could randomly switch them. The AC is usually designed for a specific coolant. If the AC is too high pressure for the coolant, it might stay as a liquid when it's not supposed to. If the AC is too low pressure for the coolant, it might not change into a liquid when compressed.

I remember the Ford mechanic saying I had to get my AC converted if I wanted to recharge it. My car at the time used some old type of coolant that is now illegal because it's a CFC.

Generally they sell kits to convert r12 into r134, but not the other way around.


I've heard of people doing things like using propane in their a/c systems.. But I dunno about the 2009 toyota that had something switched.

 

[LTC8K6]

My 2008 Jeep can get too cool inside even on a 95 degree day. It seems to have Industrial Strength A/C.

My Brother's 2008 Jeep seems to struggle to cool down on very hot days.

 

[The Boston Dangler]

You also have nice 3.5 motor spinning a bigger compressor than that of a smaller import.

I think he meant import+small car.

My Focus was a small car, but that cabin could get morgue cold really quick. Comparable Asian cars from that era couldn't do that.

i'm not sure the compressor, alternator, etc would be all that different. the great parts counter question "with or without a/c?" doesn't apply to newer cars.

 

[natto fire]

The size of the car's engine is not nearly as relevant as how the system is actually designed, especially the surface area of the condenser and evaporator. Because all car AC systems are now using clutch cycling orifice tubes instead of expansion valves, the compressor capacity is not as important as on R12 systems.

Most small cars are packaging nightmares, and usually have to compromise on something to get the functionality into a stylish frame. Here is where you run into undersized condensers that get little air flowing over them until 40+ MPH, or an evaporator that had to be shrunk to fit in an airbox that had to be redesigned to fit in the 20th airbag, etc.

Also, if any of those cars you mentioned were R12 to 134a refits, that is not really indicative of how the system originally worked. R12 condenses at lower pressure than R134a, and as such an R12 compressor does not do a great job with 134a.

Shawn, while your description is somewhat close (albeit with incorrect terms), I thought I would mention that it is the car's engine that is satisfying the conservation of energy law, not temperature differentials. Latent heat in phase change is actually carrying the energy, which is supplied from the engine turning the compressor doing the phase change. So in your death valley scenario, you might be waiting a bit longer for the refrigerant to condense because of the higher ambient temps, it will still evaporate just as cold as any other time.

Of course, perceived function will change but the AC is still working. To say nothing of the fact that AC sucks in Death Valley because the drier the ambient air is, the less "cold" the system feels.

 

[Raizinman]

There are lots of blends that you can put into your A/C unit. Obviously it will void your factory warranty, but on our 2009 Toyota, the factory warranty is already gone. Yes, R12 can be put in, so can Propane. Australia uses Propane quite a bit without any explosions. A quick check of the internet can find you lots of things to use. In my case, I used some old R12 that I had around. Of course, use at your own risk. I call this Reverse Retrofitting.

What did you switch in/out? I thought most cars today were made to use the R134a refrigerant. Before that, R12 refrigerant.

/AC Noob.

 

[trevor0323]

my g35 has excellent a/c - a freezing cold gale in your face. both the heat and cold are very quick to get up to full strength. i'd be surprised if similar nissan/infiniti models were any different.

My G35 sedan has probably the worst heat I have ever experienced and AC that smells funny but blows ok

 

[HAL9000]

The Air Con in my RX8 was excellent.

 

[NickR]

If you want a car with good A/C, get a GM product. If nothing else, GM cars generally have arctic air conditioning. Even the much lambasted cavalier, it's one major plus was that it had the best A/C in it's class.

Look at the Pontiac Solstice GXP, 2.0L Turbo. Or if you can, a Saturn Sky Redline. A used Cobalt SS Turbo would be awesome too. The only good cobalt, if you ask me.

You could also just splurge and get a new Mustang with the 3.7L. sub 6 seconds 0-60, and 30+mpg on the highway. Nothing to complain about there.