The “Joys” of Hot Summer Driving and Automatic Climate Control

Temperatures are increasing. With hot summer weather is everything we love, and hate, about living in warm climates. Personally, nothing gets me more than climbing into a car that’s been cooking in the sun for the past eight hours. You unlock the door, and instantly feel a cloud of hot air beckoning inside.

When asked to imagine “a very bad place” during Sunday School, I would always picture my grandparents’ old Buick, whose soft leather cushions would cling mercilessly to you during hot days. In these visions of my own eternal torment, I would be sitting in the back seat of the car on a cloudless day, with the windows rolled up, the sweat starting the boil on my arm. Needless to say, I learned to be a good boy.

Growing up hasn’t help me to deal with this situation any better. A good day goes to bad and a bad day to unimaginably terrible by simply getting into a hot car. And if that wasn’t enough, there’s accidentally touching the scalding hot metal part on the seat belt, your shirt sticking to the front of the seat, and having to grab the molten steering wheel that you must contend with.

But then the air conditioning comes on and the car cools down, and you realize that you stopped at a really good place in your audio book when you parked your car this morning. And even though traffic’s moving a bit slowly, you’re cool, calm and comfortable. Things are good.

What is Automatic Climate Control, Anyway?

The hot, or should I say, cool ticket on any car sale used to be standard-equipped air conditioning. Nowadays, this is practically an expected feature on all but the least trimmed of vehicles. You’re probably actually more likely to find a car that doesn’t have a radio.

Conventional air conditioning does have one drawback: you’re always playing with the dials to try to find that nice medium between muggy and arctic chill. Well, automatic climate control makes everything just right.

Much like its name implies, an onboard computer monitors and adjusts the system according to your input, much like a thermostat. Many Chevy vehicles, like the 2014 Chevy Impala come equipped with automatic climate control. If you would like to learn more about the system, we encourage you to stop by Cox Chevy in Bradenton.