With the weather heating up it means your car is heating up too. An overheating engine can cause serious damage to your car. Keep your car cool and healthy as you prevent overheating with a few simple maintenance tips.
Check Engine Coolant
To keep your car from overheating, make sure you have plenty of coolants. This is always important, but especially during the heat of the summer. Check your coolant levels by opening hood and locating the coolant reservoir. There should be indicating lines on the reservoir that will indicate how much coolant you have. Coolant can drain fast in the summer and without it, your engine will quickly overheat. Add coolant is just a matter of pouring it in the coolant reservoir. Just be sure that your engine is cool before you add coolant—it can be very dangerous to add coolant to a hot engine.
Park in the Shade
This one is a bit of no brainer but parking your car in the shade will keep your car cooler. When your car is exposed to the sun for extended periods of time, it can easily overheat. If you can, find covered parking for your car. It will also be much more comfortable when you get back in your car on a hot day.
Turn the Floor Vents On
It may feel nice to get into your car and blast the A/C on your face but turning on the floor vents will help you to cool down your entire car. Using your floor vents will help your push that hot air out and cool down your car (and engine) faster.
Create Circulation with Your A/C
Use the fresh air setting on your car’s A/C to create circulation in your car. This will give your car a chance to cool down faster instead of trying to consistently cool down hot air from outside. After about ten minutes once your car has cooled, you can switch it over.
Turn Up the Heat
It may seem counter-intuitive, but if your engine is overheating turning on the heater in your car will help to draw heat from your engine. Of course, if your goal is to cool down your car this is not a good idea. But if your goal is to cool down your engine, this is an effective method. After your engine has cooled, you can switch back to A/C.
Flush Your Cooling System
Cars have cooling systems to keep the engines from overheating. These systems should be flushed periodically to ensure they are working at maximum capacity. Even if all the coolant is at the right levels, it can still get dirty. Having it flushed out and replaced with new coolant about every 40,000 miles will help you to keep your car cooler longer. Check your owner’s manual for a more specific recommendation of how often to flush your coolant.