What Is the Hottest Surface In Your Car On A Summer Day?

Perhaps the worst part of the Grand Junction summer is when you have to climb into a vehicle that has been sitting in the hot sun for several hours.

Hot Car In the Hot Summer Sun

Recently, I shared a video from Colorado State Patrol trooper Lewis who was demonstrating how hot it gets in an enclosed vehicle on a hot summer day. In the video we see the internal temperature climb over 50 degrees in just 15 minutes. Even though the outside temperature was about 93°, inside the car the temperature rose from to over 120° in just 15 minutes.

What Is the Hottest Surface In Your Car?

The video - along with the idea from a co-worker - inspired me to investigate the surface temperatures of a vehicle in the hot sun. What is the hottest surface in your car?

My co-worker, who for the sake of this post will be called "Carl", has an infrared temperature gun with a laser. You point the laser at an object - and it magically and instantly records the surface temperature.

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Parking Lot Temperature Investigation

So "Carl" and I head out to the parking lot of the radio station like Sherlock Holmes, to investigate how hot the various surfaces of a car get after it's been sitting in the sun for a while. I want to point out that at no time were any animals - including Carl and myself - injured during the shooting of the photographs that follow.