On Tue, 2006-05-09 at 20:57 -0700, William Chops Westfield wrote:
> On May 9, 2006, at 2:08 PM, Howard Winter wrote:
> 
> > Then I turned on the A ircon, and it showed a drop of 5MPG.  I
> > repeated the experiment a few times, and it was pretty consistent.
> 
> I think the usual argument goes that in hot weather you either run
> the air conditioner (increasing engine load, as you say), or you
> open the windows (which interferes with the aerodynamics, increases
> drag, and thereby increases engine load.)  At highway speeds, the
> drag issues is supposed to be bigger (drag goes up with V^2, air
> conditioner extra load is a constant...)
> 
> That COULD all just be urban legend.

Well they did some experiments on that Mythbusters show. Unfortunately
those guys aren't always the most scientific with the way they do
things.

In my case it doesn't matter, whether the windows were open, closed, or
the AC was on our Olds and Buick always seemed to get the same highway
mileage. Now, they were pretty much bricks through air, so opening the
windows probably HELPED the aerodynamics...

Was it 50's cars that turned out to be MORE aerodynamic when going in
reverse rather then forward? :)

TTYL

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