The average temperature inside an air-conditioned subway car ranges from 72 to 78 degrees. But rides on so-called "hot cars" have left many riders burning up — and venting their frustrations online to the MTA. Transit Reporter Jose Martinez has that story.

These are tough days in the subway.

The heat wave has essentially brought the transit system to a boil – with triple digit heat in many stations.

"It's just like you're in an oven, it's so miserable, you know," said one straphanger. "When you see people is not on the cars, with nobody, don't get on it."

But Steve Tate, a theater producer who lives on the Upper West Side, isn’t suffering in silence.

Upset that a car on the 1 line had no air conditioning, he reported the outage to the MTA on Twitter.

"This is a health hazard for passengers and unacceptable," he tweeted on July 28.

An hour later, he was at it again.

"Ok, at this rate I think you are literally trying to make your passengers sick. 7:34 p.m. 1 train downtown cars 1999 and 2000 No AC."

"If you tweet the car number, the uptown or downtown, the train number and that seemed to be the only worthwhile that I could get help," Tate said.

A growing number of riders have the same idea. They are using social media to report cars with air conditioning problems to the MTA.

The agency says it welcomes the tweets, through the handle @NYCTSubway.

Most of the complaints involve the 1 and 6 lines which use 30-year-old cars that have only one cooling unit each.

"The 1 trains are horrible," said one woman. "There are multiple, multiple cars that have no AC."

"They should put at least a sign that it’s not air conditioned," said another.

The MTA claims that once it is notified about a breakdown, it takes the car out of service.

But the agency couldn't provide numbers on the frequency of AC outages, or say whether the problem is worse than from previous summers.

But by one measure — Steve Tate’s tweets — the problem isn’t getting any better.

"No AC, 1 train uptown, 5:50 p.m. car 1843, and the car next to it. Death Sweat Hell," he tweeted last week.

"I put 'death, sweat, hell,' because that exactly is what it feels like when you get out of the subway car," Tate said.