Is using the recycle air option in the car bad for the engine?

Question

My friend and I are having an arguement, I tell her to use recycled air most times because it gets colder and blows harder, she says that its bad for the engine, the car needs to bring in fresh air or it will over heat. Help settle this.

Answer 1

It won't affect the engine. You can safely say you won that argument! The only trouble with recirculated air is that it is obviously not as fresh as direct air from outside. The handbooks say you should allow fresh air in every so often although I can't remember how frequently. Don't worry though, you're not going to sufforcate if you forget! lol.

Answer 2

Whether you use recycled air or not has nothing to do with your car overheating... I'm not sure where that came from. The car will recirculate air in the cabin, and occasionally pull in air from outside when on "recycle". This does nothing to affect engine temperature (versus another mode of a/c). Mechanical fans, electrical fans, or both are located next to (almost always behind) the radiator which pull air through it in order to reduce the temperature of the coolant when moving slowly or idling. When you're moving faster, the airflow from moving is enough to cool the engine, so you can see why the fans are so important. A car will overheat if it has no airflow over the radiator, but your friend is confused about where the airflow is coming from. No matter what the you have the a/c setting on inside, those radiator fans are always outside, pulling air through the radiator and a/c condenser, independent of each other. If it were true that the car needed to bring in fresh air through the ventilation system, then that would imply it would overheat if you had everything off inside (which it doesn't).

It is important to keep in mind that the a/c, in any setting, will make the engine run harder to turn the compressor. In addition to this, the condenser (located in front of the radiator) will heat the air around it (so you stay cool inside). This means the fans will have to pull extra hard in order to keep a constant supply of air moving through the radiator. If you have electric fans you may here them spin up when you turn on the air. If a cooling system is in bad shape, the a/c may cause it to overheat from the extra work, BUT... that is for a/c in general, not any one setting.

Lastly, think about it this way... why would the automakers intentionally design something into a car that makes it overheat? I run recycle a/c all summer long!

Answer 3

Using the recycled air setting has no effect on the engine. That setting is only for the interior air. I will use it when I first get in the car and it is still hot from setting in the sun. Once it gets down to temp, I put it back to the normal mode, just because I don't like listening to the blower motor.

Again, that setting has no effect on the engine at all.

Answer 4

No, you can use recycled air and the engine shouldn't be affected, the car depends on the radiator to cool the engine, not fresh air (although it does help).

Answer 5

recycled air aint got nothing to do with the engine. it is just the air in the cabin that is being reused.the only thing about that is that the air becomes stale after a while. whether you use recycled or fresh it just has to do with your AC system and not your engine. so use all the air you want .

Answer 6

no ,all your doing is re-using the air that's inside the car,all it does is close off a vent,and it will re-cycle the cool air that's already there,its not bad for a car,it cant hurt the car,sometimes it is better to do this,because it doesn't make the air conditioner work so hard to cool the car,it has no affect on the engine what so ever,good luck on it.