GRANDVILLE, Mich. -- Keeping up with routine maintenance is essential to maintaining your vehicle's performance and safety. When the weather is warm and the roads aren't covered in snow the height of a small child, summer is the perfect time to get in the habit! One of the most important parts of your summer car care routine should be maintaining your cooling and A/C systems.
RiverTown Honda is here with some cooling system and A/C system care tips to get the job done.
COOLING SYSTEM
While our winters may suggest otherwise, Michigan gets hot come summertime. That's why it's important to make sure that your vehicle's cooling system is up to the task of keeping things, well, cool. Your cooling system regulates the temperature of your engine and its components. While your car is running, a ton of heat-generating friction happens under the hood, which can cause it to overheat is the cooling system isn't working properly.
What's responsible for this process? Coolant. Your coolant should be changed every 24,000 miles or two years, whichever comes first. However, if you experience any of the following warning signs, you should schedule an appointment with our service center as soon as possible:
- Engine temperature is too high or too low. Typically, the needle of your engine temperature gauge on your dashboard should stay around the middle. It can be triggered by something blocking your cooling fan, or it can mean that a cooling system component is not working properly. High engine temperatures can result in serious, costly damages if left unaddressed.
- Your engine light is on. It's easy to ignore the lights on your dashboard when they light up, but you have them for a reason. While sensors can go bad and trigger a false alarm, it's better to be safe than sorry and get it checked out, especially when it comes to your engine.
- Your coolant is leaking. Coolant is often bright green, orange, pink, or yellow. If you see a puddle of any of those colors underneath your car, it could be a coolant leak. Another way to identify this issue is a sweet smell coming from your air vents.
A/C SYSTEM
Did you know that the temperature inside your vehicle's interior can reach 40 degrees hotter than it is outside? Yeah, that's not cool. Puns aside, it's important to make sure your A/C system is in proper working condition to ensure that your summer road trip is a comfortable one.
Your A/C system works by cooling the air inside your cabin and removing humidity. It accomplishes this through seven major components including the refrigerant, compressor, condenser, evaporator, expansion valve, orifice tube, and accumulator or drier. If you experience any of the following issues, you should have your car serviced as soon as you can:
- Weak airflow. When you turn the A/C on in your car, you should feel a steady flow of air. If you don't, there might be mold or mildew on the evaporator, a loose hose, or a broken seal in the ventilation system.
- A lack of cool air. A broken seal, hose leak, failed fuse or switch, failed blower motor, or a damaged condenser or evaporator can cause a lack of cool air.
- You hear or see a leak. The refrigerant that runs through your A/C system is a highly pressurized, colorful fluid. If brightly colored puddles appear under your car or you hear a hissing sound coming from the condenser in front of your radiator, you most likely have a leak. This can affect how the whole system functions and even disable it completely.
- Strange smells from the air vents. Moisture, dirt, and sometimes even mildew can build up on your cabin filter, which can result in weird smells when the air is blowing. The smell in question is sometimes described as "wet newspaper" or worse. While it isn't harmful to you physically, you still don't want to drive around in a gross-smelling car, so you should have a new air filter installed promptly.
In order to beat the heat this summer, it's important to make sure that your cooling system and A/C system are working properly. If you experience any issues whatsoever, don't hesitate to schedule a service appointment with us! Our friendly and knowledgeable technicians are ready to help you keep your car running at its best!
Give RiverTown Honda, the #1 Honda Dealer in Michigan in 2017, a call at (877) 236-9113, or visit us at 4260 Kenowa Ave. Grandville, MI 49418, one mile west of RiverTown Mall.
