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Dodge Dart 2013 SE Base Model - No Air Conditioning

22K views 34 replies 19 participants last post by  Duane 
#1 ·
Hi everyone this is my first post here, so bear with me. I am just looking to get some viewpoints on the 2013 Dart SE:

I recently purchased this version of the dart, It was a great price with only 900km on the monitor. So I really wasnt complaining about the price I paid. I know its a base model and you cant expect to get all the bells and whistles when you buy something soo cheap. But my one and only issue with the car is that it did not come with air conditioning. Its starting to make driving the car almost unbearable. Ive had it less than a month. the car just doesnt get cool. When its parked in the sun for about half an hour it turns into a moving sauna. I have the windows down as I drive to aid the cooling process but it doesnt seem to help much.

When I use the cooling system it simply blows warm/hot air at me - to the point where it actually heats the car more than it is outside of the car. I dont understand how not having A/C can be such a big problem.

I'm beginning to think that there must be some sort of mechanical issue that it has, from sitting in the dealers lot for the past 2.5 years (if somebody has some insight into this possibility please shed some light). I'm thinking I may need to get the coolant checked out, or something in the engine area I dont know what.

If anybody else out there has a similar issue with the 2013 Dodge dart SE model I would love to hear your viewpoint.

Btw I live in Saskatchewan so we only get ridiculous sun for 6 months of the year and icy winter for the next 6. So i'm looking forward to the colder part of the year.
 
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#2 ·
I don't think there's anything wrong with your car. Without A/C, there is no way for it to blow air that is cooler than the ambient air temperature outside. In fact, the air will probably be warmer when it comes out of the vents, because it's very hot under the hood. Unfortunately, if you don't have A/C and it's 30+ degrees Celsius outside, it's going to be hot in your car, especially if it's a dark color. I know that my black Dart is unbearable when it's very hot, even though I hate using the A/C (it's like dragging an anchor with the 1.4T engine in city driving).
 
#11 ·
Thanks for the explanation, I really did think that I could just set the temperature to cool and that it should/would eventually get cool - Its a bit silly thinking of it now, but that is what I thought. :(

The interiors are dark grey and its the redline pearl colour on the outside
 
#4 ·
Get the windows tinted. I would recommend using a ceramic based tint. It will be significantly more expensive than traditional tint but the heat reduction is very good.

That being said I have black interior on my car and even the hottest days by putting down all the windows and driving a few minutes the car cools down significantly. Then again I'm someone who prefers windows down over using AC
 
#29 · (Edited)
Gotta be careful with that - the user manual says it might interfere with the TPMS [tire pressure reading].

how can a car comes without a/c especially when its a higher model.
Higher-end models do come with AC. The SE is the most basic, even in 2013. Whereas options were truely optional in 2013, AC was only optional in the SE. SXT and up came with it included.

---
I will add that if you have a sun-roof, keep it tilted up to vent out hot air if possible.


As a side-note, IDK what you guys are complaining about, I never experienced much, if any, power/torque loss when I had my AC on, and that was a lot. I lived in Phoenix for the first half of my Darts' life ('13 Turbo, manual limited; fully loaded aside from sunroof & engine heater). AC was on pretty much all the time there, and I had plenty of power to pass. Not as much as my chipped B5, but still.
 
#5 ·
No offense, but its your own fault for buying a car not equipped with A/C. As the sun heats up your dash and the vents inside of it, it's going to blow really hot air out. Your engine coolant has absolutely nothing to do with your air vents, except in the winter when you use the coolant to heat the air.

Your best bet would be to trade it for a car that has A/C as the price it would cost to install it would be greater than the loss you would take on trading it in.

Now you know why it sat at the dealership for so long ;)

Sometimes you have to learn a lesson the hard way, and this was an expensive lesson you just learned.
 
#12 ·
Yeah when I was buying it I was trying to think of reasons why a 2013 model would still be sat in the lot, but being an inexperienced car buyer I had no idea that the A/C would be that issue.

I'm considering trading it in now for a cheap model with A/C. Does anyone happen to have any idea what kind of a loss im looking at if i took it back to the dealer? dont need numbers just like a percentage of how much they might cover from initial financing.
 
#6 ·
my last two daily drivers had no ac. i will never so that again. i use the ac when it gets around 75 lol. its the only thing i require as of now. my dart is pretty well loaded but i cant go without the ac.
 
#10 ·
well you can always see about getting ac system from a totaled dart from a junk yard and install your self if you are handy or have bud that's handy or have local garage do for you. but wont be cheep . I know I couldn't live with out ac but I do live in co where it averages 90f or higher in the summer ! good luck
 
#14 ·
In my first 12 years of driving I never had a car with A/C. I didn't want to have to deal with the extra plumbing under the hood when working on my vehicle. Living in Seattle we only had maybe a week of really hot weather in any given year anyway. Once I finally got a vehicle with A/C however I wondered how I survived without it. Now we've had a really hot spring and summer with a record number of days above 90F. The A/C on my Jeep crapped out last week, and when using the vents it too only blows hot air. When I first saw how the SE Darts didn't even come with A/C I knew that wasn't going to be a very popular omission, because we aren't in the 1970's anymore. These days people naturally expect a new car to come with A/C.
 
#17 ·
Congrats on the trade up!

Perhaps you can get one of the forum Admins to change your username ... i.e., from "Uche2013SE" to "Uche2013SXT".
 
#23 ·
SE's are the most basic and mostly no frills, SXT's are only one step up from the base model of the Dart's. In the real world, AC is not a necessity in an automobile (or a home for that matter), it is still considered aluxury. Just like money doesn't grow on trees, AC is not federally mandated equipment on all automobiles sold in the USA.
 
#24 ·
I have a 2013 SE with no A/C and live in the north east (RI). I have not missed it at all so far this summer. I never sit in traffic where i live (my commute is through the country area) and I always have all the windows down. I also never drive in the rain so no issue there either. My dart has the black interior so it does bake in the sun but i leave the windows cracked at work and its been fine. Honestly, for the $3-4k i saved getting the base model its been a wonderful compromise (especially with the 6MT) and allowed me to buy the car cash.
 
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#25 ·
I never had AC in any of my vehicles until I reached age 30. At the time I thought of it as doing little more than making it harder to work under the hood with all those extra pipes and hoses everywhere. Since having A/C however I no longer can go without it during the summer. That being said, a minor complaint I have with my Dart is that the A/C never gets really cold. It takes ten minutes of driving to cool the air enough to be comfortable. My wife's Impreza's A/C is a little better, but not much. My old Neon however still blows ice-cold A/C despite being an 18yo car. Of course with it running the car takes 2 minutes to get from 0-60 mph and I don't dare try to pass or merge into traffic without turning it off first.
 
#26 ·
I don't dare try to pass or merge into traffic without turning it off first.
I have had to tell my wife very firmly to not touch the ac controls when im driving without saying so. She hit the ac button on the highway on me and made an almost not great situation even not so much greater. little engine that could.
 
#27 ·
Didn't read the entire thread but I find that a sunscreen in the windshield helps keep the dash a lot cooler. Combine that with keeping the windows lowered some and it takes much less time to get the super heated air out of the system. But I wouldn't trade my AC for anything. Which brings me to this . . which I also posted in a different thread . .:

I know this is an old discussion but I'm having an issue with the recirc that has surfaced in the past 2 weeks. Running AC and the recirc cuts off but the light stays lit. You can tell when this happens because of A) the sound B) the air is warmer and more humid. As a little bit of history the week before this started happening the dealer had to replace the hands free module which involved "taking the whole lower dash apart behind the steering wheel." Loss of recirc during this darn hot eastern NC summer is not good.
 
#32 ·
Early Neons with the stick were pretty quick and fun to drive. But the 3-spd auto they came with had a low 1st gear that was great off the line, but 2nd was just barely underdrive and 3rd was overdrive (and then after that you had the converter lock). Whenever I launch from a red light it takes off okay, but the second it upshifts to 2nd it falls flat on its face and can't speed up any more. Going up a steep hill at low speed is sheer Hell because 2nd is too high and it lugs, yet 1st is way too low and the engine screams. And highway passing is bad because the downshift to 2nd does little good. Having the A/C turned on merely exacerbates the problem. Going from that POS to the Dart was such a relief for me, to the point where it feels like a fast car to me simply because of what I was used to. It's slower off the line than my Neon is but once it gets moving it keeps moving.
 
#34 ·
When you pay that much..... Don't you want AC? I live in SC and there's no way in hell I could live without it.


We the willing, led by the unknowing do the impossible for the ungrateful. We have done so much, for so long, with so little, that we are qualified to do anything with nothing.
 
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