Auto Air Vents - Do They Work?

The main thing you definitely want is one of the windshield shades,
the largest size you can get, because of that HUGE surface area and
all that nice absorbent black dash underneath it. That alone will
make the biggest difference, as long as you're not lazy about using
the thing. If you're not too worried about rain or vandalism, leaving
the side windows cracked half an inch helps too.
.
The clamp-into-window fan units are cheezily built, and in the Prius
won't seal the slot because there's an angled-down part of the
opening in the front *and* rear windows. You'd have to kludge foam
or something into there every time you set it up.
.
I'm working on a quick-n-dirty project to power up the car's regular
climate-control fan at a very low speed, without powering on the rest
of the car, which is able to at least push some air through the
cabin instead of letting it sit stagnant in there and keep heating
up. It draws an amp or less from the 12V battery, which should be
safe for several hours and if you have one of those solar-panel
battery maintainers, that could help balance that out.
.
The vent control has to be on "fresh air" position for that to work,
of course, in conflict with leaving it in "recirc" position to try
and keep rodents out of the A/C ductwork... different rest states
for different weather, I suppose.
.
_H*

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(BexarWolf @ May 26 2007, 11:47 PM) [snapback]450681[/snapback]</div>

I heard our local news peeps tested and it did not work at all

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(BexarWolf @ May 27 2007, 12:47 AM) [snapback]450681[/snapback]</div>

Had a friend who bought one and threw it away after one week, said he couldn't notice the difference...he had tried it on two cars, but the one that had tinted windows wouldn't work. I guess it couldn't get enough light to power the fan.

After his recommendation I decided against it.

 

I've seen a few tests that indicated it made no difference at all, and one that said it RAISED the temp.

 

I had a solar vent fan in the rear side window of a 2001 Prius for a while, and found that it was helpful in cooling the interior. However, it was very noisy on the highway and I could not be bothered to install/remove it each time. So now I leave the windows down a bit when the circumstances permit that.

 

My aux-blower-power project is done, for some value of it, and
documented: http://techno-fandom.org/~hobbit/cars/nest/
... good enough for next weekend, and it'll go into a nicer box
sometime later.
.
_H*