Ice Ice Camry!

April 3, 2008 11:42 AM

I have a 98 Camry with leather seats and I live in Arizona. As you may have surmised, I am an idiot. The car has been great though, and I'm not getting rid of it anytime soon. My problem is that I have a long commute and by the time I get to work or home my pants & the back of my shirt are plastered to me, no matter how much I blast the AC. I'm thinking I need some sort of seat pad that provides ventilation and maybe active cooling. Any recommendations?
posted by mattholomew to travel & transportation (8 comments total)

One of those bead seat covers that taxi drivers have.

See this previous AskMe thread.
posted by The World Famous at 11:46 AM on April 3

just get one of those super sexy sheep's-hide things.
it has the benefit of being cushier, too.
posted by Acari at 11:48 AM on April 3

One of those bead seat covers that taxi drivers have.

See this previous AskMe thread.
posted by The World Famous at 11:46 AM on April 3 [mark as best answer] [+] [!]

I have thought about those, but I've heard too many comments from people that they are very uncomfortable.
posted by mattholomew at 11:49 AM on April 3

Also, I tried one of the sheep's-hide things with my old non-air-conditioned car in the DC summertime, and it made every aspect of the DC summertime exponentially more miserable.
posted by The World Famous at 11:51 AM on April 3

just get one of those super sexy sheep's-hide things.
it has the benefit of being cushier, too.
posted by Acari at 11:48 AM on April 3 [mark as best answer] [+] [!]

Thanks for the recco -- but unfortunately I tried one of those before and they don't really provide any ventilation since your body just crushes the (fur? hair?) down.
posted by mattholomew at 11:53 AM on April 3

This looks good, some reviewers in Arizona said it kept them cool. Unfortunately, the long-term quality may not be so great.

Circulating Ventilated Seat Cushion
posted by Nerro at 12:11 PM on April 3

You know you can replace the seats, right? And that it's really easy?

Just find a you-pull-it, drop $50 on two new seats (cloth, this time), and swap them out. Keep the old ones in your garage, or sell them, or do whatever you want with them. I'm sure there's plenty of '98 Camrys out there that are the right color.
posted by god hates math at 12:38 PM on April 3 [1 favorite]

As a fellow leather-seated-Arizonan, aside from Nerro's product, here's my list:

Super sexy sheep-skin seat covers.
Tacky reflective windshield screens.
Start your car (and AC) a few minutes before getting in.

The problem you, me, and everyone else in Arizona, is experiencing is not fundamentally from lack of air movement in the leather, but from the high ambient temperature of your seats in general. They are acting like a big thermal-mass.
Sheepskins act like a layer of insulation, keeping you away from the heat of the seat.
The sunshade will keep the ambient temperature of your car down, thus a lower seat temperature. Another plus that most people miss is that a sunshade significantly reduces the temperature of your dash. A cooler dash means that the AC ducting running through it doesn't heat up before it gets to you.
By running the AC for a few minutes you’re compounding the gains you get from the cooler temperature from the sunshade.

Remember, you begin sweating a lot faster/harder at 120-degrees than you do even at 90-degrees.
posted by enobeet at 3:22 PM on April 3