COOLING A HOT CAR

Decrease the amount of time it takes to cool your car off after it's been sitting in the summer sun by using this simple six-step process. Photo by jam343.

Even with fancy reflecting shades and window tint, leaving a car parked in the sun inevitably turns it into a blast furnace. How-to compendium wikiHow offers a simple guide to getting the hot air out as quickly as possible:

1. Roll down the windows.
2. Turn on the A/C on the fresh air setting, do not recirculate.
3. Crank the fan up all the way and make sure the thermostat is on the coldest setting.
4. Drive for a minute or two with the windows down, to force out the superheated air.
5. Once the air in the car begins to feel cooler than the outside temperature, then switch from fresh air to recirculate.
6. Adjust temperature using lower thermostat and fan settings.

We would add one more tip to their guide. Your car, with the windows rolled down, is essentially a bucket. If you adjust the airflow so the air is also blowing down into the foot wells, you're more effectively displacing the air from the area of the car with the least air circulation and pushing it up and out the windows.