Do You Know What's inside Your Radiator?

As you may know, your car's engine is fully reliant on its cooling system due to the extreme temperatures encountered whenever the vehicle is in motion. The amount of liquid that must be pumped through the engine's internal chamber is carefully regulated by the ECU, and it's very important to ensure that the levels are always maintained carefully. In order to ensure this, you should pay a lot of attention to the radiator, as well as the type of fluid contained within the system. What do you need to know?

Difficult Operation

For a car radiator to be truly efficient, it has to be configured carefully so that airflow can cool the liquid within the matrix. To enable this to happen, designers have introduced hundreds of narrow fins that criss-cross its surface and are held together in a frame. Inside, the liquid is pushed through these fins under pressure by the water pump so that it continues its journey back to the engine, where it will gather more heat to repeat the process.

All about the Fluid

The efficiency of the system will, however, rely on the quality of the liquid contained within. You should use a coolant that has been specifically designed for the purpose and is available from your local auto parts store. It's okay to dilute this with water to a certain extent, but you should never rely exclusively on tap water. At the very least, the mixture needs to be deionised or filtered as if not, trouble could be ahead.

Mineral Contamination

This is because the water emanating from your kitchen tap contains a lot of different minerals. Given time, they'll become attached to the narrow passageways within the radiator and will form an impediment that will directly affect the operation of the system. As it will be more difficult for the water to find its way through the radiator, it will not be as effective at keeping the engine temperatures in check.

Natural Degradation

Nevertheless, even if you do use the right amount of coolant and avoid tap water as much as possible, a certain amount of contamination will build up in any case. This is because the coolant product will degrade over time and will need to be replaced, if efficiency is to be maintained.

Service Time

If it's been some time since your cooling system was serviced, you need to schedule this as soon as possible. You may need to flush the radiator several times to get rid of the contamination, and such a job is best left to your local mechanic. Reach out to a professional today for help with car radiator repair.


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