Yeah… they call it that cuz the same principle applies to vehicle engine cooling.
Air cooling is not as effective as water cooling, but just take a look at beetle engines made more than half a century ago, they’re all air cooled and still up and running. It’s all in the design, if it’s good and overengineered, it will pracatically run forever.
Too bad nothing nowadays is meant to run more than 5 years.
they had a tendency to overheat in hot conditions, and when stuck in traffic. this is because they need a certain amount of air flowing in order to cool properly.
they also weren’t very good for heat in the winter.
air cooling is a simpler system, and as such has less to go wrong with it. that doesn’t make it better or worse. there are pros and cons to both systems.
VW and Porsche engines area really oil cooled. They have oil cooling radiators inside fan shrouds with thermal expansion baffles that open when it gets hot and close to prevent overcooling in winter.
They didn’t really overheat very often of all the shroud and engine compartment seals were in place and the baffles were in good working order.
The reason you can often go start up an ancient air cooled engine is mainly that they don’t have any water pumps (and water) to sit in them and rust up. That any that there’s no crazy fuel injectors or fancy electrical systems to fail. Just a Carb and distributor to clean/adjust.
Too bad nothing nowadays is meant to run more than 5 years.
Where do people keep getting this from? Cars today tend to last far longer anywhere where winter is a thing.
As for air cooled vs water cooled engines, the power output (and vehicle mass) has to be part of that conversation. Yes air cooling works on on a 25 HP motor, but it doesn’t work so well on modern engines making an order of magnitude more power.
Honestly people give old vehicles (or old anything) way too much credit. It’s survivor bias, only the good stuff lasted this long. The shitty products have all been recycled multiple times by now. I mean think about it, 100,000 miles used to be an old-ass car back in the day, but for anything post 1990 or so that’s just getting started. Don’t get me wrong, I admire the simplicity and repairability of old vehicles
Similarly it’s actually easier to fuck up the design of a water cooler than an air cooling system. Notably motherboard warp can happen from an improperly set up water cooling.
Air cooling is a lot less complex than water cooling, so there are fewer points of failure. If both can do the job, I’ll pick reliability over efficiency every time.
If you genuinely think that those old engines are still running on original parts. Then I don’t know what to say, because you wouldn’t understand any of it.
It’s not that simple because air cooling in pcs today means a heatpipe. A heatpipe uses fluid (such as water under a vacuum) that boils at a low temperature. The phase transition of liquid to vapor transfers hundreds of more times heat than simple conduction of cold water running over the CPU.
It’s how refrigerator compressors work to cool things so effectively. The genius of a heat pipe is it works without an electric compressor ( this limits it’s cooling ability but it’s still genius).
So a heatpipe CPU air cooler with a 120mm radiator will outperform a water-cooler with a 120mm radiator in almost every situation. The advantage of water-cooling is you can make that radiator huge (280mm is typical today), and place it on one of the side/top panels of the case where air is cool instead of deep inside where the air is hot.
Cars built today will outlast most of the old Beetles. There is a big survivorship bias at work. A percentage of them were built to slightly tighter tolerances and quality than all the others off the same line. A percentage of those will end up in the hands of owners that are meticulous about maintenance, never get in a major accident, and keep it going for decades. The handful you see left are the ones that went through several rounds of small percentage chances. There were a bajillion of those old Beetles made, so a few were bound to get through.
What cars have problems with today are things that rarely have to do with making the wheels go. They get into accidents. Their auto-dimming back windows no longer work. The GPS doesn’t get updates and thinks you’re three counties away. The engine and transmission, however, will probably go to the junkyard in perfect working order, even with shitty maintenance on the part of the owner.
Two problems with the drivelines of modern cars: sensors, which can cause some pretty spectacular mechanical failures; and cost-cutting engineering. Trimming parts to use less material and that kind of thing, but also less investment in QC (looking at you, Kia engine recalls).
There’s truly more to go wrong in modern cars, and the electronics can fail and cause mechanical failures, too, especially in the combustion cycle.
The fact remains that most cars today will go to the junkyard with perfectly good engines and transmissions. Those sensors tend to kill themselves before killing other parts of the car, and then you just replace them.
I beg to differ, I was an owner of a Renault Megane which had a screwed up onboard computer that somehow managed to mangle 3 timing belts and a cylinder head. I spent more reparing it than the ammount I spent to buy the car… all because of a screwed up onboard computer.
And not one mechanic listened to me, I told them the computer was acting up, throwing errors left and right, then silence for a month, then errors again, they said it’s the sensors 😤… I mean, come on, all of the sensors acting up at the same time, then they go in deep sleep for a month, then the same shit again… excuse me, but you’re either dumb or just wanna squeeze money out of me.
Yeah… they call it that cuz the same principle applies to vehicle engine cooling.
Air cooling is not as effective as water cooling, but just take a look at beetle engines made more than half a century ago, they’re all air cooled and still up and running. It’s all in the design, if it’s good and overengineered, it will pracatically run forever.
Too bad nothing nowadays is meant to run more than 5 years.
they had a tendency to overheat in hot conditions, and when stuck in traffic. this is because they need a certain amount of air flowing in order to cool properly.
they also weren’t very good for heat in the winter.
air cooling is a simpler system, and as such has less to go wrong with it. that doesn’t make it better or worse. there are pros and cons to both systems.
Those problems can be easily fixed with aditional fans.
Really strange that it’s so easy but I don’t see any new cars for sale that do it that way
Maybe it’s because air cooling was abandoned a long time ago. All new cars are water cooled.
You’re almost there. Keep going
VW and Porsche engines area really oil cooled. They have oil cooling radiators inside fan shrouds with thermal expansion baffles that open when it gets hot and close to prevent overcooling in winter.
They didn’t really overheat very often of all the shroud and engine compartment seals were in place and the baffles were in good working order.
The reason you can often go start up an ancient air cooled engine is mainly that they don’t have any water pumps (and water) to sit in them and rust up. That any that there’s no crazy fuel injectors or fancy electrical systems to fail. Just a Carb and distributor to clean/adjust.
Where do people keep getting this from? Cars today tend to last far longer anywhere where winter is a thing.
As for air cooled vs water cooled engines, the power output (and vehicle mass) has to be part of that conversation. Yes air cooling works on on a 25 HP motor, but it doesn’t work so well on modern engines making an order of magnitude more power.
Honestly people give old vehicles (or old anything) way too much credit. It’s survivor bias, only the good stuff lasted this long. The shitty products have all been recycled multiple times by now. I mean think about it, 100,000 miles used to be an old-ass car back in the day, but for anything post 1990 or so that’s just getting started. Don’t get me wrong, I admire the simplicity and repairability of old vehicles
You have clearly never lived with an old air cooled VW engine and dealt with it overheating in traffic.
Or going uphill
Similarly it’s actually easier to fuck up the design of a water cooler than an air cooling system. Notably motherboard warp can happen from an improperly set up water cooling.
Didn’t know this, thanks for the info 👍.
Air cooling is a lot less complex than water cooling, so there are fewer points of failure. If both can do the job, I’ll pick reliability over efficiency every time.
My thoughts exactly.
If you genuinely think that those old engines are still running on original parts. Then I don’t know what to say, because you wouldn’t understand any of it.
Of course not, but they sure as hell require A LOT less maintenace than our “modern cars”.
They really don’t.
Keep up with services, fluids and treat them with respect. You won’t have a problem.
When was the last time you had to replace a distributor cap on a modern car?
I replaced it on my Vauxhaul Meriva 2006 about 6 months ago, why?
It’s not that simple because air cooling in pcs today means a heatpipe. A heatpipe uses fluid (such as water under a vacuum) that boils at a low temperature. The phase transition of liquid to vapor transfers hundreds of more times heat than simple conduction of cold water running over the CPU.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enthalpy_of_vaporization
It’s how refrigerator compressors work to cool things so effectively. The genius of a heat pipe is it works without an electric compressor ( this limits it’s cooling ability but it’s still genius).
So a heatpipe CPU air cooler with a 120mm radiator will outperform a water-cooler with a 120mm radiator in almost every situation. The advantage of water-cooling is you can make that radiator huge (280mm is typical today), and place it on one of the side/top panels of the case where air is cool instead of deep inside where the air is hot.
Yeah but VW engines were pretty small, carrying pretty small cars.
It got you from point A to point B, didn’t it?
Cars built today will outlast most of the old Beetles. There is a big survivorship bias at work. A percentage of them were built to slightly tighter tolerances and quality than all the others off the same line. A percentage of those will end up in the hands of owners that are meticulous about maintenance, never get in a major accident, and keep it going for decades. The handful you see left are the ones that went through several rounds of small percentage chances. There were a bajillion of those old Beetles made, so a few were bound to get through.
What cars have problems with today are things that rarely have to do with making the wheels go. They get into accidents. Their auto-dimming back windows no longer work. The GPS doesn’t get updates and thinks you’re three counties away. The engine and transmission, however, will probably go to the junkyard in perfect working order, even with shitty maintenance on the part of the owner.
Two problems with the drivelines of modern cars: sensors, which can cause some pretty spectacular mechanical failures; and cost-cutting engineering. Trimming parts to use less material and that kind of thing, but also less investment in QC (looking at you, Kia engine recalls).
There’s truly more to go wrong in modern cars, and the electronics can fail and cause mechanical failures, too, especially in the combustion cycle.
The fact remains that most cars today will go to the junkyard with perfectly good engines and transmissions. Those sensors tend to kill themselves before killing other parts of the car, and then you just replace them.
I beg to differ, I was an owner of a Renault Megane which had a screwed up onboard computer that somehow managed to mangle 3 timing belts and a cylinder head. I spent more reparing it than the ammount I spent to buy the car… all because of a screwed up onboard computer.
And not one mechanic listened to me, I told them the computer was acting up, throwing errors left and right, then silence for a month, then errors again, they said it’s the sensors 😤… I mean, come on, all of the sensors acting up at the same time, then they go in deep sleep for a month, then the same shit again… excuse me, but you’re either dumb or just wanna squeeze money out of me.