3 Way Fridge and fuel economy

[albertramsbottom]

Hi

Some comments would be appreicated.

I was wondering how much running the fridge on battery (whilst running of course), would have an effect on fuel economy. They recon that using aircon in a car can add as much as 20% to the fuel consumption. How this might sould daft but I am sure that I can notice a ruduction in power from my van when running the fridge on battery.

Cheers

Aswers on postcard please

[Bigplatty]

Hi, my guess would be as you are only using 12v to keep the temprature maintained you should not notice any extra use of fuel, as the fridge will only call for power when it needs a bit of a boost.

[albertramsbottom]

Well my thoughts on that one is that becuase the fridge is old and warm when I just in the van it takes a good couple of hours to cool down so one would have thought that this would have an effect on fuel economy as does aircon, which would work in the same way

Cheers

[lloyd]

Disagree on mileage loss. Fridge draws similar to having lights on, so in theory hp to run alternator is more, but no big difference in mileage. So little I doubt you could definitively record it with other variables involved (wind, temp, humidity, etc.

Same for mpg with or without AC on - Air-conditioning makes a big difference when driving at low speeds, but has very little impact on the motorway. Reason being at low speed you are using greater percentage of hp to run ac cmpressor then at motorway speeds. My personal experiece backs this up as I couldn't definitively see a difference with or without ac on at motorway speeds.

[tonytech]

Fridge will draw about 8 -10 amps. Most (if not all) 3way fridges do NOT have a thermostat in the 12V circuit. Therfore thy draw current whatever the temperature inside.

T