Extreme heat is still gripping much of the United States and summer long-distance travel is still on many people’s agenda. In order to make it through the rest of this record breaking hot summer make sure to have your service professional check your engine cooling system belts and hoses.
The cooling system hoses and belts can deteriorate over a period of time. The
Over the last few years, due to trends in styling, many newer cars do not have conventional grills up front. Very often, a closed panel resides, or the hood extends down to where a grill would have been. But all vehicles still depend on air passing through the radiator to provide engine cooling, and also for A/C system operation.
Many vehicles now have electric cooling fans that do not operate until necessary, when the engine coolant temperature climbs above a certain point.
The heater core is located inside the passenger compartment of the vehicle, quite often very deeply buried inside or under the instrument panel, or behind some other type of interior trim panel. Some SUVs and vans have two heater cores, a front and a rear.
A radiator has 2 tanks, one containing the inlet and one containing the outlet. These tanks, which can be at the top and bottom or sides, are usually made of aluminum, brass, copper, or plastic (most newer vehicles use the plastic type).
The water pump is the heart of the cooling system. It circulates the coolant through the engine, radiator and heater core. These days, certain vehicles (like some SUVs, vans and most hybrids) often have more than one water pump, and the auxiliary pumps are usually run by electric motors and controlled by a computer.
The purpose of desiccant in a mobile air conditioning system is to absorb and hold
moisture. Moisture in a system (above an acceptable level) can lead to corrosion and
degradation of the lubricant.
If on a humid day, you turn on your car’s A/C system and a fine mist blows out of the vents, don’t be alarmed.
Some odor treatments are merely feeble attempts to cover up odor. They are doomed to fail. Almost all odor treatment products fail to provide a long-term residual effect that can reduce the reoccurrence of odor. Here is a brief description of the performance capabilities of various odor treatments by product type.