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What’s the best way to cool down your car?

Posted at 11:24 PM, Jun 18, 2014
and last updated 2014-06-18 23:24:08-04

A few days are officially left in spring, but the ugly side of summer has come early to Hampton Roads. Denise Cheri didn't find a parking spot with shade on this trip.

"I fear going back into my car right now, and it's only been out there for about 30 minutes," Cheri said. "It's too hot."

The strip malls that cover Hampton Roads don't offer a lot of shade though.

There's debate among drivers on what's the quickest method to get rid of sauna like conditions in your car.

NewsChannel 3 ran a little experiment to find out what's the quickest way to cool down your car.

Both of the cars were facing the western sun. We got their temperatures to just around 85 degrees inside, then left the two cars outside baking in the sun for an hour.

Then we got inside the cars and waited for our thermometers to make an accurate reading of 110 degrees.

For 20 seconds we put down the windows while the air conditioner blasted, pushing the hot air out.

Then we drove around the block and within a minute, it dropped a dramatic 23 degrees to a much more bearable 87.

As for the other car, AC alone didn't quite match up.

Still at 100 degrees after a minute of cooling, it was much toastier than if we had put down the windows and let the AC push out the hot, stale air.