If your Honda car isn’t getting the fuel economy that you thought you’d get, here is one of the reasons. You’re using your air conditioning almost all the time. It’s true and we’ll explain why this happens and what you can do about it.
First, some facts. Using your air conditioning at highway speeds is actually better than driving with your windows open. The fuel economy hit with the windows open is about 20%, with your A/C on, it’s about a 10% hit. Now that this is out of the way, here’s the scoop. Depending on which air vents you use on a regular basis, floor/dash/floor and defrost/all defrost/etc., you are very likely using your air conditioner almost all the time, no matter what temperature it is outside.
If you have your Honda ventilation system set to either of the two front defrost settings, that would be full defrost or part defrost/part floor, your air conditioning compressor is running. Part of this you probably already knew, right? The owner’s manual and your friendly salesman told you that when you have the vents set to front defrost, your A/C compressor is on. There is even this cool orange LED that tells you that you’re using your A/C. No problem with that setting.
What Honda and your owner’s manual don’t tell you is that when you with any front defrost setting, your A/C is on, full front defrost (with the warning light in orange) or part front defrost/part floor (with the pretty green warning light that tells you everything is OK…but it’s not). Even with the part front defrost and part floor setting, the A/C compressor is on and wasting your expensive fuel and neither Honda nor your owner’s manual lets you in on that dirty little secret.
The reason the A/C compressor is on is simple. A/C compresses air and dries it. That’s why you see drips of water coming from underneath the front of cars in hot weather. The drips are the results of the air conditioning process, compressing the air and drying it while the A/C gas removes the heat. It’s the same thing in your home air system. A condensate pump gets rid of the water which has been extracted from the air.
When you are driving, the air outside your can can become moist, almost dripping with humidity. Depending on the ambient temperature. this moist air can collect on the inside of your windshield, creating a fog which, of course, hides the road in front of you. The simple solution is to flick on your front defrost, the one with the orange warning light, and let the A/C dry that moist air and disperse the fog. Hell, you can even heat that air a bit even though it’s already been cooled by the air conditioning. In some extreme cases, this is the only way to clear your windshield.
The point of this post is to let you know that both front defrost settings use the A/C to dry the air before it hits your windshield; the one with the orange light and the one with the green light, the one that lies to you and tells you that everything is fine and economical. Green, like the ECO button, signifies natural and good and apple pie…except in this case.
If you’ve been used to driving around with your ventilation system set to part front defrost/part floor vent, then you’ve been wasting anywhere from 10 to 20% of your precious fuel, in spite of the fact that the green LED is telling you otherwise. There is no system in place for you to choose whether the air conditioning is used or not. Any front defrost setting turns on the A/C compressor.
Here’s the problem that we have with all of this. First, Hondas are sold as reliable, economical cars. For the most part, they are. When a car company hides the fact that one simple setting in the ventilation system will give you a 10 to 20% hit on your fuel economy, we see a problem. We can only assume that this is for safety but this begs the question: Why not let us know about this with a warning light? There are two A/C warning lights already on the Honda ventilation system. What’s the problem with a third?
A simple solution would be for Honda to offer the orange warning light or the ability to turn the compressor off. Wouldn’t that make more sense than hitting us with lower fuel economy? What possible reason would there be to mask what should be an orange warning light with a green ‘everything is OK’ light?
We know this isn’t about computers or Facebook or Twitter but, hey, a lot of you drive Hondas. After reading this you might want to rethink your ventilation settings AND get some higher fuel economy.
Thanks for reading!