By completeautorepairs Uncategorized 0 Comments

Bring on the Holiday Season!!!

Image-cooling-system-7-Summer’s here and you’re itching to fill your vehicle with petrol and hit the open road. Great!
We want you to have a hassle-free and enjoyable “Happy Motoring” experience.
Making sure that your “Old Faithful” is ready for the long, hot trips is vital to this.

One of the main roadside mechanical breakdowns is the cooling system failing.

This is because with the combination of heat, long trips and heavy loads can place enormous demands on your car as the vehicle’s cooling system has to work harder to prevent engine overheating.

The basic Cooling system is made up of the following components:

– Radiator
– Radiator top hose
– Radiator bottom hose
– Water pump
– Thermostat
– Thermostat housing
– Electric cooling fan
– Thermo-time switch
– Anti-freeze / Coolant
Image-of-Breakdown-6
As you can see there is a series of components that circulate coolant through the engine to absorb heat, then circulate air through the radiator to remove the heat from the coolant. It only takes one part of the system to stop working, and you’re on the side of the road while your engine takes a steam bath.

If you do wind up in this situation, “Stop immediately” or turn off your air conditioning and turn your heater on to hot. Although it’s hot, it can help remove heat from the engine and use the additional fans to cool things down until you can get to a safe area to stop.

Nothing can slow down a road trip like car trouble, and seeing that “check engine” warning light flash on the dashboard is a sure way to put the brakes on your summer getaway.

Nothing ruins the engine of a car faster than overheating; and when your engine isn’t cooled properly, it can easily blow a head gasket, or crack or warp a cylinder head. In technical jargon, your engine will have a “meltdown” and can be expensive to repair.

Even a simple thing like a “stuck thermostat” is a common cause of engine overheating which is relatively affordable to replace at the time.

We recommend if you haven’t replaced the thermostat and your car is middle aged then this is advisable when having a cooling system repair done. This could save you a “meltdown” and having to pull off to the side of the road with a steaming hood.

So, we suggest before you pull out of the driveway and hit the open road or if there are any signs e.g. Your engine overheats quickly on short trips or is overheating after extended driving to book in with us at Complete Auto Repairs to get it repaired; or to organize a Pre-trip inspection, a Service and include the Pre-trip / Holiday check as the best medicine is “Preventive”

Image-cooling-system-4-300x211Did you know: The ideal mixture of coolant and water inside your vehicle’s radiator is 50:50. If you were to put pure water in your vehicle’s radiator, it would boil at approx 100 degrees Celsius. But if you combine the water with an equal amount of antifreeze, the new mixture boils at a much higher temperature “The magic of chemistry!”