117 Degrees this weekend! Hot, Hot, Hot!

“That time of year” comes a little early to the West this year with spikes in temperatures that we shouldn’t see until the end of July! With that in mind, it’s time to protect yourself, your family, your pets and your car from this heat!   Of course, #1 is hydration for both 2 legged and 4 legged beings.   If your lips are dry you are dehydrated.  If your pets usually drink a gallon of water a day – be sure to have 2 gallons of cool water available. 

Arguably #2 has to be not leaving pets or people sitting in the car without the a/c running.  On a 95⁰ day the air inside a parked vehicle can quickly reach 145⁰!  It doesn’t take long for this temperature to take its toll on any living thing.  At only 85⁰ and the windows lowered 2 inches, the temperature inside your car will reach 109⁰ in just 15 minutes. So a quick run in for coffee is too long!  If you see this happening – call the authorities immediately.  Even 10 minutes is too long.

The steering wheel on a 95⁰ day can reach 159⁰ and the dash can become a sweltering 181⁰!  There have been tests done showing that the dashboard can be used to cook bacon and eggs!  Wow!  And that’s at a 95⁰ day.  It’s going to be over 115⁰ here in the West this weekend – you do the math. 

If you use sunshades in your car you can reduce the heat build-up in your vehicle by 48⁰ and dark tint can do even more.  The glass on your vehicle acts as a magnifier so protection is imperative.   Even with some sort of sunscreen on your vehicle (whether tint, cardboard or reflective foam) I would recommend that you cover your seat and steering wheel with a towel.  It makes it a lot more comfortable to drive.

If the heat in your car is so intense that the a/c is not cooling it down, be sure to open all windows, sunroof or lower the top, so that the hot air can escape quicker. 

As for keeping your vehicle healthy in this heat….watch this short video with suggestions from our Service Manager, Scott Nordberg.

“It’s been said the only people who can change the world are those who want to. Well, we want to. That's why we are exploring more fuel-efficient options and technologies with our vehicles. But we want to do more.”

So says Chevy’s website.  Every day we contribute to the climate change - to the greenhouse emissions.  Each of us can make personal choices in our homes, our travel, what we discard as unusable, what we are eating.. I used the Carbon Footprint Calculator at nature.org and was amazed that my carbon footprint is nearly double the size of rest of the country’s. When I looked at it closely I realized that it was because I live here in Las Vegas and my home energy level was off the charts. Since I have done considerable work to reduce my “footprint”, and am still producing 44 tons per year, I am in awe that Chevrolet has such an altruistic goal – and they are accomplishing it!  Their goal is to reduce 8 million tons of CO2 by 2014.

“If we want to leave the world a better place, we need to change the way we do things,” said David Tulauskas, GM sustainability director and manager of the Chevrolet carbon-reduction initiative. “Climate change, population growth, urbanization and other issues require our industry to transform itself. We are going beyond our traditional scope of responsibility – building efficient vehicles – into these community-based carbon-reduction projects to help demonstrate our commitment.”

Chevy has come out with great “green” cars in the last few years, like the Volt, the new Cruze Clean Turbo Diesel and the Ecotec3 engine for the Silverado (just to name a few). It’s the significant investment that Chevy is making in the community at large that is going to make the big difference.

One of their ongoing projects right now is called IdleAir.  This project is to help truckers avoid idling during their rest stops.  It can help the truckers save a gallon of diesel fuel per hour while keeping the cab comfortable and the TV or laptop on. The truck is turned off after the driver installs a reusable plastic window adapter – no noise, vibration or exhaust fumes. It saves fuel, reduces emissions and keeps the power on to the trucks amenities. Wow!  What a concept!

Chevy is also working with the Nature Conservancy to manage approximately 20,000 acres of forest to produce a long term supply of timber, a wind farm in Oklahoma, managing an almost 14,000 acre tract of land in California to allow the trees to grow and it was the largest corporate buyer of voluntary carbon reduction credits in the United States in 2011. 

It’s a great start and I am proud to be a part of Chevrolet.