Volkswagen didn’t need to make the Phaeton, and arguably, it probably shouldn’t have been anything more than a fun idea. Still, I couldn’t be happier that Volkswagen actually did. Necessary cars are so boring and don’t even offer a W12 as an option, which may make them more profitable, but where’s the fun in making a profit? I also love knowledgeable people nerding out on details they find fascinating, so last week, I had to share a video I found that spent seven minutes talking about the Phaeton’s trunk. Now, it’s time to take 21 minutes to learn about the Phaeton’s climate control system.
How can heating and cooling a car’s cabin be interesting? Well, Ferdinand Piëch certainly found one way, and that was to insist on something so overly complicated that it’s basically a miracle engineers in the late ’90s could even make it happen. The internet had already been invented back then, but most people were on AOL dial-up, and computers were beyond slow by today’s standards. But Piëch wanted what he wanted, and that included a climate control system with zero compromises, even if few owners would ever fully appreciate what the engineers accomplished.
Heating and cooling requirements
If you’re familiar with the Phaeton, you probably know that Piëch gave his engineers a long list of very specific requirements for Volkswagen’s flagship sedan. What you may not realize, though, is just how obsessed he was with the climate control system. And no, the word “obsessed” is not an exaggeration, with the executive reportedly once saying, “if I ever forced one of my hobbies into one of my car projects, it was the Phaeton’s draft-free A/C system.”
When it was cold, Piëch wanted a car that could defrost its windows as fast as possible and warm the cabin quickly enough that you wouldn’t even need to wear a jacket. That meant adding an extra heater that also came with its own exhaust system and used a fuel pump that used an electromagnetic piston to keep things as quiet as possible. Engineers added the ability to set a start time for your Phaeton so it would already be warmed up by the time you left for work in the morning, but you could also turn it on from the key fob, and it had an automatic mode that allowed the ECU to turn it on whenever it decided that was necessary. It used more gas, especially when only driving short distances, sure, but that’s just the cost of comfort.
That’s also just the beginning, too. Once you hit that point in the video, there are still more than 15 minutes left to go. So I say kick back, give the entire thing a watch and enjoy learning far more about an old Volkswagen’s air conditioning system. The day is basically already over, and you deserve a break that involves something far more interesting than all that boring work you’re being paid to do. Just be careful. It might lead to a little Phaeton window shopping, and that can only end poorly. Unless…
