Cars' capacity to manage extreme heat

[monkeh]

Towed heavy load back on 32 degree day in the XC70, car loaded to the gunnels. mixture of stop start traffic, followed by hard pulls at 60 through welsh countryside.
Air con on full blast, a very pleasant 15 degrees in the cabin, no issues.
Arrived at home, 5 minute idle to "cool turbo".
Parked car in the garage, Engine off, fans continued to run for 10 minutes.

No warnings, no rough running, No funny smells.

It's going to be fine, don't worry about it!

What I find quite funny, is that my Dodge, coming from Americaland, Its air con system struggles and the transmission struggles in our stop start traffic.
I've got a 3rd party tuner that monitors all the temperatures via OBD, stop start traffic sends the transmission temperature to 220-230 degs F. Engine sits at 210 degs. another 20 degrees, its problem time.

[uknowiama]

Should be fine - just be a bit more sympathetic?

As said cars are tested in extremes of temperature - driven to Arctic Circle and Death Valley. As well as environmental chambers - for extreme heat and cold.

Let the card idle for a bit at end of journey.

Check fluid levels in cool of day and when car is cold.

Sufficient oil. Coolant level.

Not using cars, at beginning of day am opening sun roof and closing at end of day so interior doesn't get too hot. Got a sun shade across the front windscreen.

[Tony Rama]

Also to note: Extreme heat here isn't extreme for much of the central US, EU, Russia, the Middle East, China, Africa and Australia...........

But people around here in the south of England freak out and stay at home at the lightest sprinkling of snow!!

[BlueDevil]

The only potential issue with heat I see in the fact that it's easier to cool down engine when outside air is 10*C vs 40*C. Other than that, I don't think it makes any difference for the engine. And the Q is whether those 30*C of difference really make any difference for the car.
The AC part will be forced to work its' ass off and it will produce more heat, but other than that I don't know.

IMO it's a much bigger issue with (extreme) cold - I was in a situtation more than once that in -20*C and lower sometimes, the car simply couldn't heat up the cabin, so even after driving for more than an hour the air coming from heater was barely warm. Obviously the thermostat shut off the outter circulation to keep the engine at desired temp, which is by design. We fixed it by temporarily inserting a piece of cardboard in from of radiator to block a part of radioator (approx 1/3 we blocked so air couldn't pass through it) and that fixed it for cabin.

But in heat I never had any problems so far - and we have extremes every summer here, in direct sunlight (so in a city start-stop driving) it is almost regularly over 35*C for the better part of summer.

[Ian21401]

I can remember from my childhood in the UK, in the winter it was common place to blank off part of the radiator. There were even kits to fit a roller blind type device which could be rolled out over more, or less, of the radiator as required. In those days though, most cars did not have cabin heaters as that was a luxury optional extra, if in deed such an extra was even optional.

[apersson850]

Heating was a very early feature in Sweden, of course. But a curtain to roll down in front of the radiator was also common into the 1960's.

All models with diesels in this part of the forum were equipped with diesel driven auxiliary heater when sold in Sweden. It starts running also when you drive, when it's cold enough outside, since then there's not enough superfluous heat from the engine to keep the car warm. We have it in both our XC70 cars.
It can also be used to preheat the engine and passenger compartments on cold days.

A friend of mine used to work with development at Volvo. He said he was once in Death Valley in the US, to do tests in the heat. Top temperature recorded on the upper side of the dashboard, under the windscreen, was 106°C! This was with the car parked in the sun. If you touched the surface, wisely not with your bare finger, the plastic was all soft. But the cars worked.

[FreshAir]

Noticed that my Stop Start was disabled by the ECU last week with a message about 'External Temperature'. Think the temperature outside was around 30 deg C. No issues with the car though, although I did wonder how that could be as the car could be used somewhere where it over 30 deg C for weeks not hours.

[Whyman]

I did my apprenticeship with a large engineering company that exported large earth moving equipment all over the world.

In hot countries we would specify an larger radiator to cope with the heat and on cold countries we supplied them with thermostatically controlled radiator shutters.

[ferg55]

Originally Posted by FreshAir

Noticed that my Stop Start was disabled by the ECU last week with a message about 'External Temperature'. Think the temperature outside was around 30 deg C. No issues with the car though, although I did wonder how that could be as the car could be used somewhere where it over 30 deg C for weeks not hours.

Rather than the stop/start not being able to cope with 30deg, it's probably disabled for customer satisfaction, due to the a/c not being operative with the engine stopped. With an external temp of 30deg, customers would start to complain that the car was heating up inside when stopped in traffic.

[Clan]

Originally Posted by BigGreenThing

Hi folks,

I'm just curious...how do cars (but specifically V70/XC70s!) manage in extreme traffic in extreme heat? I know many operating parts are able to withstand massively high temperatures, and I know cooling systems are there to do a job, but what about other non-heat resistant or non-cooling system related components (like drive belts/plastics/rubber connections/electrics) ?

I don't think I've driven/been stuck in traffic above about 30C...

I know there are members on here that had driven in 40C+ in the recent heatwave in France etc, but at what point/temperature does the engine/engineering capacity start going "I've had enough of this bloomin' heat"? I mean, is every part of the car heat and cold tested?

Any thoughts welcomed!

Just asking for a friend! Lol!

No problem with volvo cars , remember they are sold in hotter climates than we will ever see.