Too hot after a while in the Sun - how to avoid ?

S60fan · 16 Jan

Naturally, my Volvo gets hot after parking in the Sun for a few hours. But, I open the windows and wind up the AC when starting for a drive (turning the temp down to 18°C or so). However, for about 10-15 minutes of that drive, I get a horrible blast of radiated heat in the face. It is very hot like, being too close to a fire but not burning. As I drive, the temperature of that heat gradually declines and is no longer noticeable after 15 minutes or so.

On Monday this week, I felt the windscreen and found it to be very hot. I guess that could be the source of the radiated heat. That would be consistent with the gradual reduction in heat while driving.

I've been using a sunscreen to try to shade the interior, positioned inside the car. If the heat is coming from the windscreen, could the sunscreen be the cause ? Could heat reflected off the sunscreen be retained by the windscreen ?

Does anyone have this experience ? What do my fellow Volvo owners do to keep out the heat ?

jamesinc · 16 Jan

Beyond a sun visor and parking in the shade, a good quality IR-reflective window tint makes a huge difference. It also won't ruin your night visibility, and if you dont like the tinted look you can get films that have very minimal tint but still block a lot of IR.

I've got Suntek tint on the glass of my 244 and it has reduced the cabin temperatures significantly, although if parked in the midday summer sun, the cabin will inevitably heat soak eventually.

S60fan · 16 Jan

jamesinc

Many thanks. It's worth considering. Another idea would be to find a sunscreen that wraps around the outside. It does seem odd that I've not had the issue with previous cars (Volvo, SAAB, Mazda).

242GT · 17 Jan

Try a sun visor for the front windscreen that has extended flaps on each end , then put them inside the car before locking the doors with the qaulity sunvisor on outside of the windscreen so it absorbs the uv & heat not the glass.
Switch air con to recycle setting instead of fresh air from outside.
If you've got a reverse camera on the back the Volvo ones dont like being in direct sun light all day and will play up , the screen goes blue when you select reverse , with a picture of a camera in the centre and a red X over the picture , speaking from experience there unfortunately.

S60fan · 17 Jan

242GT

Thanks. Yes, a screen around the outside makes sense. I have thought the issue might be related to the AC so, will try your suggestion next time.

The S60 has 360° cameras. So far, have only lost one for a short while in 2020, on the passenger side. Lane assist was on at the time and the car tried to drive off the road! But, I think it helps to regularly clean any collected dust and muck off the lenses.

242GT · 18 Jan

I've got a 2013 XC60 , the reverse camera in the hatch has played up several times as the hot sun moves during the day its heated the reverse camera up and it stopped showing anything except the blue screen and red cross in the middle.

Once it cooled down , all back to normal and worked fine again , anyone had this problem ?

I've bought one of those bigger padded uv windscreen sun shades that tuck a rectangle shaped tab around the A pillar on each side and you close the doors on it and don't let the windscreen expand and contract ( had this happen and tp passengers corner was letting water in when I washed the car , replaced 10yr old chipped screen ( its a big sheet of angled sensor glass) and bought padded uv outer sun shades , works well now.
I just had to change the way I went about things.