A/C pressure on 4 cyl. engines?
 

I recently bought a 2001 Honda Accord LX with 65k miles. It runs beautifully, but my only concern is the pressure on the engine when I run the air conditioning. I have heard that running the air conditioning is really hard on a 4 cylinder engine, thus I'm always a little weary to do it. Is this true?

I've driven my 4 cyl over 105,000 miles and used the A/C plenty. Stay comfortable, use it. The A/C unit is matched to the engine, it will not hurt it.

My master mechanic husband says that running your A/C on this car will not hurt the engine in any way. The air compressor requires some horse power to run it, but not enough to pull the power from the engine so that it will really make a difference.

When people say that running the air conditioning is hard on the engine, what they are really saying is that the smaller the engine the more effect of running an air conditioner is on the overall performance of the engine itself. When an engine is smaller it has less horsepower to begin with and when the air conditioner is running it takes away a more significant percentage of what horsepower is available, so you will probably see a drop in performance of what you are used to without the air conditioner on, especially when starting from a stopped position.It will not damage the engine in the aspect of any physical damage, just a performance hit. So stay cool, and if you need the extra horsepower for a small time, turn it off.

you can use it, because it doesnt mess up the engine or anything. performance wise it'll effect it, for example it might take off a little slower than usual but usually its ok to turn it on.