Car cooler

June 19, 2017 4:32 PM

Can I use a car cooler to meet my specific needs - and which one?

I am very busy with appointments, school pick-ups, unexpected meetings and a lot of unpredictability. I need something in my car that needs no prep to keep things cold AND that will still work if I don't get back to it for a few hours. I don't want to come back to a dead battery and I am not in a position to run and get ice. So it either needs to work on its own or use the cigarette lighter or something. I need to keep a small amount of groceries (e.g. milk, medication and maybe a protein) cold, with the possibility that I may not be able to get back to my home fridge for several hours and that the car will not be running. Is there such a thing? I only have a small car and would like something that is easily removed in case I have a front seat passenger. I can't imagine this will work in the back seat, but I can consider it. I am also open to other ideas. Thanks.

posted by shockpoppet to Technology (12 answers total)

We keep a few blue freezer blocks in the freezer all the time. They go in the cooler when we go shopping anywhere
but in town. The chill lasts for hours and the blocks last for years.
posted by Botanizer at 4:43 PM on June 19, 2017 [2 favorites]

Can you just use a thermos, the real kind with a vacuum canister? It will absolutely keep your milk cold all day. I'm not sure about the medication - if you put some ice cubes in a second thermos maybe it would work? For protein could you use peanut butter or cheese or something else that can go a day without refrigeration?

The peltier-based electric coolers do work, but they don't get very cold very fast, and the one in my RV takes about 5A to run. On a little standard car battery that isn't safe to run for very many hours. Certainly not overnight.
posted by fritley at 4:48 PM on June 19, 2017

I'd get a Yeti cooler. They are sooo expensive but I have been just amazed by then.

I had a car cooler that connected to the lighter. Not happy with it.
posted by beccaj at 4:53 PM on June 19, 2017

Modern coolers hold cold very efficiently. A refreezable cold pack in a well-insulated cooler will keep things cold for an entire day, no electricity necessary. Pelican, for example, rates some of it small soft-sided coolers to keep ice for 48 hours. The hard-sided coolers do even better. If you're accessing the cooler in that time, the time will go down, but it should still be plenty to keep things cool throughout a day of running errands.
posted by jacquilynne at 5:02 PM on June 19, 2017 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks. If it wasn't clear, I don't have time to go get ice. I live in an apartment and just have a small freezer, so I have no real room for ice packs. But, in any case, if I am running from appointment to appointment (often unpredictably), I don't have time to zip home and get ice. And trying to carry that many packs up and down with the groceries and a child with extra needs and backpacks and everything else is just too much.

To be clear, I want to have the flexibility to have a situation where I have 15 min to run to the market at 11 am, go to more meetings, and then get to 3pm pick up, hang out at park, and come home with food at 5pm.

I could also consider a cooler that doesn't use ice, if such a thing exists.
posted by shockpoppet at 5:06 PM on June 19, 2017

Response by poster: And, no, I need to be able to buy 2L or 4L or milk, not just keep some to drink. And I can't put ice in the meds..I checked.
posted by shockpoppet at 5:07 PM on June 19, 2017

I also have a styrofoam cooler that seems better than any others I've seen - it's extra thick - it came from a large animal vet. The vets that do horse breeding get semen shipped in these, I think packed in dry ice, so they keep cold for days. You might stop by a vet and ask if they have some. They'll surely be free if so, because they get one per shipment. If you keep one in the car, you could use snickerdoodle's method and just put the already-cold stuff in it and it'll be fine.
posted by fritley at 5:32 PM on June 19, 2017

Could you get a small yeti cooler and just buy some frozen peas when you get the other cold objects? You'd have to do a test run but I think it would be enough to make it work. There might be a similar item available in your pharmacy that you could buy at the same time as the medication to just use to cool things.
posted by raccoon409 at 6:48 PM on June 19, 2017

I think you should buy the largest cooler you can fit in your car and pack insulating blankets in around the stuff you're storing. One of the reflective folding sun shades that fits under the windshield might be important too.
posted by XMLicious at 2:15 AM on June 20, 2017

Does wherever you get groceries also sell ice? Where I am, pretty much all grocery stores/markets sell bags of ice for pretty cheap...not sure if that's also true for you. If so, could you pick up a bag or two and throw it in with the groceries? You wouldn't need to unpack it right away with your groceries, you could just come back and take care of it later.
posted by R a c h e l at 6:14 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]

For more money, you could install a fridge made for vehicles. The link goes to a high quality and expensive option, but there are others at different price ranges. Combined with a solar panel on the roof and the right kind of electrical connections to prevent it from draining your battery, this would give you the kind of always-available cooling that you are looking for.

I've only ever seen these mounted in SUVs and trucks that are set up for offroad camping, but if space allows there is no reason it wouldn't work great in a car.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:28 AM on June 20, 2017

How about a thermoelectric cooler box, then power it with a chunky portable battery back like this one.

Then when you are driving around, you can just plug the generator into the car to recharge it (or plug it in at home at the end of a high-use day).
posted by Static Vagabond at 11:21 AM on June 20, 2017 [1 favorite]