Aircon

I refer to the Noisy Aircon thread a few weeks ago and also to much earlier topics where some people were dissatisfied with the ability to cool their Karoqs in hot weather.  A week ago, I drove home from North London with the outside temperature registering 31.5C at times.  I have only the aircon switched on, temperature set to 20C both driver and passenger side + have the fan set to just the first notch (low speed, nice & quiet).  I certainly don't bother with the auto - Climate Control feature - as for one thing, I don't like the racket when the car first starts off in hot weather.

This time as usual in hot weather, I opened the 2 passenger windows for a short time.  This cooled the car pretty quickly, and I shut the windows a few minutes after setting off.  The aircon pretty quickly had the car at a comfortable temperature for the journey home.  I don't know how it would cope at really high temperatures, as I did read, either in a message here or in the handbook, that the aircon will only reduce the temperature inside the car by a maximum of 14C, that's compared with the prevailing external temperature.  Still, I suppose 26C would feel substantially cooler than 40C.

I should note that when parked in direct sunlight, I do protect the car interior with a Halfords silver windscreen cover.  This time I'd parked in the shade of a tree, but the sun had moved round, directly shining on the car for maybe 2hrs before we set off back home.  Anyway, no complaints about the aircon effectiveness at a little over 30C in my red Karoq, which is not the best colour for reflecting sunlight away.