This crazy car gadget totally blows, but does it do it in a good way?【Product test】

Battling the summer heat in a head-on way.

Recently, out Japanese-language reporter Masanuki Sunakoma went for a drive in the GT-R Premium Edition T-spec, the latest and greatest version of Nissan’s top-of-the-line sports car. It was one of the most refined and capable cars he’s ever had the pleasure of spending seat time in, and the only problem is that it costs 18,960,700 yen (US$129,500).

▼ Masanuki, experiencing the fleeting (for him) pleasures of the GT-R Premium Edition T-spec

Back behind the wheel of his much more humbly priced and equipped personal car, Masanuki had to keep reminding himself to appreciate it for what it is. Sure, it may not have the neck-snapping power of the GT-R’s twin-turbocharged engine or the massive grip of its advanced all-wheel-drive system, but Masanuki’s car still provides him with faithful, reliable transportation!

But even though Masanuki is OK with his car not being particularly cool in the sense of style, he’s definitely got some complaint about how hot it is temperature-wise. Every time he goes for a summer daytime drive, he ends up covered in sweat as he bakes inside the cabin.

Looking for relief, he turned to online shopping site AliExpress, where he found the Universal Air Conditioner Extension Hose.

According to the product description, “Installation requires no special tools or specialized skills, and it is extremely popular in the summer, with many people having coolness brought to them by it.” At 1,745 yen (US$12), this is actually on the pricy side for Masanuki’s online shopping product tests, but with Japan still in the middle of a merciless heat wave, he figured it was OK to splurge a little.

The apparatus consists of two parts: a connecting clamp/plate, and the extension hose itself. Just as promised, installation was a snap, literally, as all you have to do is connect the hose and plate, then snap the plate in place over one of your car’s air conditioner vents.

Doing so creates a combination seal/funnel, channeling all of the cold air coming out of that vent into the hose.

With installation complete, the next thing to do was to set the AC to max power…

…and then put the hose where it’s supposed to go…

…which is…

…up the leg of your shorts!?!

And before you point to this as proof of how hopelessly immature we are, we ask you to direct your eyes to the instruction booklet for the Universal Air Conditioner Extension Hose, which clearly shows that this bold, one might even say ballsy, way of combatting the summer heat in a head-on fashion, is indeed how the device is supposed to be used.

▼ Feel free to call us immature for the above wordplay, though.

OK, so it looks weird, but does it work? The answer is, yes, shockingly well. It’s sort of easy to forget that a car’s air conditioning vents are designed to cool a relatively large space. Compressing even a single vent’s entire cold air flow into a tube with this small of a circumference makes for a very strong blast of very chilly air, which is just what Masanuki needed.

There are a couple of other things to bear in mind about the Universal Air Conditioner Extension Hose. First, despite the “Universal” part of the name, the instructions acknowledge that, really, it’s usable with “almost all” air conditioning systems. So if your car has an unorthodox design, like, say, the eyeball vents of an NA-generation Mazda Miata, the clamp might not properly attach.

▼ Some compatible design examples from the manual

Second, the Universal Air Conditioner Extension Hose obviously won’t work as well if you’re wearing long pants. We suppose you could unzip your fly and stick it there, but that’d probably be embarrassing for you, and also more work for us, as we’d have to come back and make all sorts of new cheeky groin-based puns. Sticking the hose in your shirt might work to get air flowing to your upper body, but having the hose going across your chest or up your sleeve could be a safety concern if it negatively impacts your ability to turn the steering wheel, work the turn signals, or shift gears. And while, in theory, it seems like you could use this to channel hot air to yourself when running your car’s heater in the winter, we’re not sure if the plastic of the clamp and hose can cope with the heat without melting, or if the concentrated heat will burn your skin, so we wouldn’t recommend trying it.

There’s also the fact that by installing the Universal Air Conditioner Extension Hose and sticking the hose up your shorts, no one else in the car is getting the comprehensive cooling of the cabin which that vent used to provide. This seems like a problem with a pretty easy solution, though, as you can just provide a hose for each of your passengers, letting you share the joy of hyper-cooled nether regions.

Because even if it looks a little silly, there are far worse ways to try to keep yourself cool down there.

Related: Universal Air Conditioner Extension Hose on AliExpress
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