The harsh weather condition experienced in Nigeria, especially during the dry season, is of concern for the comfort of human inhabitants. During the day, vehicles parked under direct and scorching sunlight with the window glasses closed tend to build up high temperature inside the cabin. The upsurge in temperature inside the car poses serious discomfort and potential ill health to the vehicle occupants when they return to use it. This study focused on the degree of temperature rise as well as on the rate of rise at specific positions inside the cabin of a saloon vehicle parked under intense sun. The vehicle was parked in North-South direction under direct sunlight at the University of Nigeria Nsukka campus. Two cases were adopted in the study. Case A involved winding up the window glasses for a long period of 5 hours while in Case B, the effect of having the two front glass windows lowered with a gap of 0.04m and monitored for 5 hours was evaluated. The vehicle cabin temperature was measured at different locations of the cabin using LM35 DZ temperature sensor. The maximum cabin air temperatures were recorded at the dashboard, rear compartment, driver head rest and center of back seat which gave temperatures of 72.4 0 C, 72.4 0 C, 62.6 0 C, 60.2 0 C respectively for Case A. For Case B, the maximum temperatures were 56.2 0 C, 60.6 0 C, 52.8 0 C, 48.4 0 C, respectively. It was deduced that air temperature in the cabin can increase to health threatening temperature in 8-10 minutes after parking under intense sunlight exposure. T-tail test analysis showed that there is statistical significant difference between the two considered Cases. It was equally deduced from the study that it is not safe to leave a child, pet or items that cannot withstand higher temperature in a parked car as such could lead to heat stroke, death and damage of items.
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