I am new to this board and have been reading as many post as I can the last week. I plan on getting a Prius as soon as I find the right color. My question is I have found a black one that has everything I want, but living in Texas it get very hot in the summer and I am concerned that the AC in the Prius will not be able to keep the car cool. Has anyone had any issues in a hot enviorment, back in the 80's I has a Plymouth Champ and the AC was terrible it would barley keep the car cool so I just keep thinking about that, am I just being paranoid. Thanks, Rowan
keep in mind that the A/C is electric so you dont have to wait for the gasoline engine to get A/C going
Hi Rowan. I can understand your concern about the AC and the color of the car and living in a hot summer invironment. I live in South Florida where it is very warm and humid in the summer and my 05 has had the AC on since the day I bought the car. I can tell you that it will get ice cold very quickly even on a hot and humid day and I have the deep red color. Using the AC has only a slight reduction in MPG. Hope this helps in your decision.
One of the things I hated about my last car was how much the A/C dropped my performance (and killed mileage). Getting on the highway or going thru tollbooth I would turn it off so I could get full power, then back on again when I was up to speed! In bad stop & go traffic the A/C would get warmer as the car started to cycle to prevent overheating. Not fun! The electric A/C does great at not hitting driving performance and being able to run full speed, even with the car stopped or moving slowly. The Prius seems to be able to manage overheating in traffic better than most car's I've owned, perhaps it makes less heat because it's more efficient? I don't know, but the electric has lots of improvements over regular A/C, certainly for 4cyl engines (bigger engines seemed to handle AC better, I thought)
Last summer in Dallas my AC worked fine. You might want to get a custom Sunshade for the windshield and park facing south when using it to reduce the cooldown time.
I've found about a 4MPG (10%) drop since the weather warmed up and I am using A/C for half my commute. This is more than I expected, especially since I'm not using it 100% of the time. The good side is that, being electric, it does't harm performance, since it uses the HV battery which is recharged when there is excess ICE power available. But wow, what a drop in mileage!
I keep my air set between 75°F and 78°F and it does just fine on my highway commutes here in AZ. I do notice, however that if I'm driving slower on urban streets, the air doesn't blow as cold. It seems that the condenser can exchange alot of heat, but only with alot of air flowing through it. At stop, even with the radiator fans on, the A/C doesn't feel as strong. However - that's not to say that the A/C doesn't work at all - the hvac fan just seem to blow harder and/or the compressor spins faster to compensate. Perhaps my condenser is just dirty? This may be typical of any car. It's just something I noticed recently here in AZ though. We haven't seen much past 95°F, and only for a few days so far this year. I did have my car out here last summer though in 110°F weather, and the A/C still performed quite well.
KTPhil, you must live where it's fairly warm. Since the weather here has been nicer I've been getting 10% BETTER since I don't need the heat anymore. I'd much rater run the AC than the heat.
Really the heat instead of the AC? I'm surprised. I too have the black one and live in FL. I had my windshield tinted with the huber optik tint which is supposed to cut down on HEAT more than the other tints. Toyota's have GREAT a/c anyway and so far - I've been very comfortable in my black prius.
