I was once told that you should never use air conditioning prior to warming the engine because it may cause damage or undue wear. I can't imagine how this might happen, but was wondering if anyone else had heard this?

Thanks for the expertise.... again.

 

I heard something similar, but the advice was to never START your car with the A/C on because of the excessive stress, yada, yada, yada ...

As for the expertise part, uh ... that's highly debatable.

 

A a/c would take 5 hp from your power, if it has to work hard, but it is way to far to say that it would damage your engine in cold start.

Then you could not use your headlights, wipers and rear window heating also, because this takes a lot of power to to drive your altenator.[check yourself, start your engine and use all electical users in one time, the engine will rev down dramatic.]

I think your right to say that a engine should be well warmed up before strss it, but this is splitting hairs.

My opinion

Greetings,

Arjan
964 C2 1992 Black <img src="graemlins/nono.gif" border="0" alt="[nono]" />

 

Guys,
You do not start your engine with the aircon selected simply because you will damage the clutch assembly on the compressor, well eventually. It will not hurt once in a while by accident. Running the aircon with the engine cold will have no effect on general wear and tear. Old wives tales category. You should however limit the rpm at aircon selection time. A colleague of mine for reasons only known to himslef, selected aircon on at 6000rpm. Boy did that clutch assembly fly, followed by the belt and the compressor was toasted as well,
Ciao,
Adrian
911C4