IF YOU CAN’T STAND THE HEAT ...
Death Valley tests cars’ resilience
When I climbed out of the air-conditioned comfort of the Kia Sedona test car, Death Valley’s heat hit me like a sledgehammer. There is absolutely nothing subtle about 48 C! It is a dry, searing heat that takes your breath away and, as I found out and to my chagrin, it burns flesh in minutes, even when slathered with SPF 50 sunblock.
However, Death Valley’s extreme heat is ideal for hot-weather testing. The torturous hill climbs and the hot soak when the mules are parked pushes every facet of the car to its limit. If it is going to melt, overheat or otherwise fail, it will do so in a hurry.
The severity of the climate is the very reason we were not alone at Furnace Creek. BMW was testing its new 7 Series and Mini Clubman, Hyundai had a couple of nextgeneration Elantra sedans and a hybrid hatchback, while GM was Cruze-ing and running the freshened Chevrolet Silverado. There were even some mystery vehicles — the consensus was the two were the next-generation Mercedes-Benz E-Class. All these mules were heavily camouflaged, but sometimes even the best efforts cannot hide what lies beneath.
The reason for being in Death Valley was a teaser test drive of the 2017 Kia Sportage — it will be launched at the Frankfurt Motor Show in mid-September. It takes about a day-and-a-half to rig the test mules with the required wiring and thermocouples needed to capture the vast amounts of data that verify exactly what’s happening. In the end, the engineers can see how effectively each quadrant of the car is being cooled, the temperature difference between the floor area and the rider’s head room, and how the engine and transmission are handling the heat.
The first test involved heat-soaking the car in the sun until
Next it was on to Badwater, the genesis of Death Valley ... After 30 minutes, the cabin temperature had soared to 53.4 C.
the interior temperature reached 50 C (it was at a sweat-inducing 50.3 C, to be exact). I started the car, cranked the air conditioning, but left it on fresh air — that forces the climate control system to work harder cooling the 48 C incoming air rather than re-chilling precooled interior air.
Mercifully, the A/C air cut the cabin temperature quickly; I was melting at the start. The car was then driven from sea level to 1,890 metres at a constant 96 km/h. At the top of the long 27-kilometre climb, the car was stopped and left to sit for 10 minutes. This was to check for any signs of overheating and fuel smells, along with a bunch of other things that tend to go unnoticed by the riders. It is all about ensuring the various systems work when tortured by the most severe temperatures Mother Nature can muster.
Next it was on to Badwater, the genesis of Death Valley. Again, the car was parked to heat up the cabin. After 30 minutes, the cabin temperature had soared to 53.4 C. This time the test was more subjective in nature. While empirical measurements were taken along the way, it was we guinea pigs who were asked to rate the cabin’s comfort.
The drive was conducted at an agonizingly slow 40 km/h, which puts the efficiency of the A/C’s condenser to the test because of the low airflow.
The instant the A/C came to life, the cooling effect started. A few minutes into the drive and the cabin was down to a more manageable 35 C.
The objective was to have the interior temperature down 20 C within 30 minutes, and this in spite of battling the sun’s incredible heat load.
It worked: I went from a frazzled sweaty mess to comfortable in short order. At the mid-point of the drive, I was cool enough to turn the A/C’s temperature up five degrees.
This test made me wonder what can be done to help cool the cabin and then keep it cool when parked. The engineer’s advice was simple: face the nose of the car into the wind. The breeze passing through the grille has such an effect on the climate control’s performance, it can drop the temperature of the air coming out of the vents by as much as 6 C!
The final test replicated what happens in stop-and-go traffic, which is the hardest on the cooling system and climate-control systems. Simply, the car is driven for two minutes and then stopped and idled for two minutes. This process is repeated for 30 minutes. The test ensures the A/C does not cut in and out and cause temperature fluctuations, which tends to be very annoying.
Kia’s testing of the 2017 Sportage, and 2016 Optima before it, is pretty much the same as that by other manufacturers roaming Death Valley; computer modelling is verified ahead of production, to predict the way the system will work in the real world. Yes, things do go wrong during hot-weather testing, but it is a blessing in disguise — it reveals a problem before the car is handed over to a new owner.
The fun part of the event came at Hyundai and Kia’s proving ground in California City. It was here the new Sportage was put through its paces before hitting Death Valley. The highlight came in the form of the skid-control school that all engineers and testers must complete. The car in question has four hydraulically activated casters. When the driver dials in some steering, the casters are pushed down, which lifts the car’s wheels off the ground. The driver then has to control the ensuing skid.
The instructor starts at a fairly benign level, one that simply requires a little countersteer to correct the problem.
Once that task is mastered, the intensity level and the amount of rear-end swing is dialed up. I ended up doing my first 720-degree spin! The feeling it left was, and will remain, enduring.