Jordan Adam
Established Member
I'm not sure it's that unpopular - I quite agree. The layout is appalling with various size seats all over the place. Continental models are even worse... but this thread is about the UK....
Among enthusiasts not going "mad" over how "amazing" Citaro's are is normally seen as an unpopular opinion. Granted some of the older ones can sound nice, but i really just don't get all the hype over them.
Of course, AirCon is not remotely a gimmick, is it? It's the usual thread-hijacking personal preferences of the poster.
Indeed, it's not a gimmick. I can see the need for it in warmer climates. But in the UK it's just not practical.
Quite agree. I've just looked back through photos of Rome and I can't make out whether they have full AirCon or just cooling (the roof pods seem quite low for full AirCon, and it wasn't hot enough when I was there. The seats were uncomfortable too. A lot of people confuse air conditioning and air cooling anyway. My father has AirCon in his car... he almost never uses it because of the extra fuel it uses, much preferring to open the windows. In any case, full AirCon with regular stops is like opening the fridge door every minute for half an hour and expecting it to keep your food cold.
Likewise, although i most travel by bus. Whenever i'm in the car we very rarely use the Aircon. The simple fact is that opening the windows does the exact same job just as well without draining fuel. Obviously with a bigger vehicle that has a bigger A/C system the fuel drain is greater. Certainly with buses it's normally pretty easy to tell and AirCon and AirChill system apart, A/C tends to be much more substantial.
Regarding the Enviro500's here, turning the A/C off and replacing it by fitting hopper windows and the AirChill system has not only improved MPG but also performance as the power drain from the engine is much lower. Quite often with buses the issue with heat is not actually down to air circulation but rather poor insulation around the engine, this is particularly noticeable on buses with smaller engines.