What is the difference between A/C and compressed air in your car?

Answer 1

Most cars don't have compressed air, per se. That's what goes in the tires. Now you may be referring to the "compressor" which is a part of the A/C system. That's the part that compresses the freon (making it get cold) which is the gas that runs through the A/C system. If your compressor goes out, the freon won't get cold anymore and the A/C will only blow hot air. Sometimes that can be worse than no compressed air in the tires :-) Be aware though that compressors rarely fail. Most times either the belt that drives the compressor has come off or the A/C system needs more freon. Freon doesn't get used up but it can leak out.

Answer 2

A/C is short for Air Conditioning. Air Conditioning Compresses a refrigerant gas into liquid within a heat exchanger near the radiator. the Liquid then moves through hoses to another heat exchanger under the dashboard of your car and evaporates back into a gas (Any liquid evaporating feels cool because it takes heat energy to cause the evaporation, its called "latent heat of evaporation") cooling the Air around the heat exchanger which is then blown with the fan through the air vents on the dashboard. The refrigerant gas then moves through more hoses back to the Air conditioning Compressor. The only place using compressed air is the compressed air filling the tires.

Answer 3

Some cars have air compressors on board for the air shocks that keep the car level when adding passengers and luggage.

Answer 4

A/C extracts heat from an area using a refrigeration cycle.

Compressed Air (Pneumatics) uses pressurized gases (sort of like wind) to do work.

Answer 5

Air conditioning is dehumidified and cooled whereas compressed air is neither cooled nor dehumidified.