Your car's heater offers more than comfort - it means a clean windshield and a healthy heating/cooling system

Don't worry, you'll have plenty of time to prepare for the cold, well, unless it's 2014 and you live in McHenry County. November in McHenry County this year apparently means arctic cold has suddenly, and unceremoniously, gripped the area in a deep freeze.

Preparation for the cold means putting away your summer wardrobe and breaking out your winter wardrobe. More importantly, it means ensuring that your car is ready. Will your car start? Do you have tires and brakes that will grip the road through snow and ice when you want to stop or go? And, when you turn on the heater inside your car will heat come out of the vents?

Merely in terms of comfort, you really want your car's heater to work properly in this latitude. But, it's more important than a matter of comfort - much more.

How well your heater works says everything about how well your defrosters will clear the ice off of your windshield, and keep it off as you drive.

If the car's heater doesn't work properly, along with discomfort and a frosted windshield, this can represent other problems. These problems could leave you stranded somewhere this winter.

Some of the problems that could lead to a lack of heat from your heater include:

Your car is short on coolant/antifreeze. Without enough coolant/antifreeze in the system, when the heater core is empty, no heat will come out of the blower. Additionally, with insufficient coolant/antifreeze, you car can overheat even in the middle of winter.
Your coolant/antifreeze is worn or diluted. This is a vital liquid in your car's engine. It's designed to avoid freezing below temperatures expected in this area or to avoid boiling over from the heat your engine can produce. When it is worn or diluted, both capacities are hurt. Once again, while it may not produce all the heat you want, it can also cause your car to overheat or even for the engine block to crack on bitter cold days.
Your thermostat may not operate properly. A car's thermostat remains closed until the engine reaches a certain operating temperature. Then it opens. It remains open until the coolant/antifreeze cool to a certain point and then it closes again. That means that, just as the coolant/antifreeze operates on a high-low range, the thermostat operates on a high-low range. If it remains closed, the engine can overheat. If it remains open, you may not get enough heat coming out of the vents inside the car.

Even when the coolant/antifreeze and thermostat are operating at 'passable' levels, you may not get all the heat you're hoping for inside the car. You may notice it takes longer to warm up and doesn't reach the same temperatures it used to provide from the vents.

As for situations where the coolant/antifreeze is low, this can indicate a leak. If so, unless it's fixed, it will only get worse until it's repaired. If it's allowed to get bad enough, once again, you risk overheating the engine and, in the meantime, you won't have the heat you want inside the car.

Hopefully, if your car does breakdown, it won't do so on a deserted road on a bitter-cold night. And, hopefully, this cold weather is a fluke and not an indication of what we can expect this winter.

Is your antifreeze safe from freezing this Richmond winter

You still have time to have it checked Well, there’s no denying it – winter tends to get chilly here in Richmond. We have to deal with snow and ice on the roads, scraping the same off our windows and windshield, and staying warm while we drive. Of course, you had your antifreeze checked before winter rolled into town. What?! You didn’t have your antifreeze checked before winter clamped down on Richmond? So, how’s your antifreeze doing? If you haven’t had it checked, there’s really no way of knowing, is there? This car has overheated in the middle of a Richmond winter. But, on the other end of the spectrum, the antifreeze can also freeze if it's not up to its job. Hopefully, you haven’t had a serious problem with your antifreeze already. If you did, you’d probably know. When antifreeze fails, it’s a potentially catastrophic condition for your vehicle’s engine. You could have hoses that have burst because of freezing antifreeze. Worse than that, your engine block may have crac...

Blocks of ice falling from cars in McHenry could cause accidents or damage

We’ve all seen those blocks of snow falling from behind the rear tires of a car when the snow rolls into McHenry . Fortunately, they’re just packed snow that will disintegrate under your vehicle’s tires as you simply drive right through them, right? Don’t count on it. Those blocks of snow are often packed so tight, condensed by the thaw-and-freeze cycle, that they’re anything but oversized snowballs . They’re often more like boulders. Hit one of those blocks and the collision between the block and one of your tires could send you careening off the road or into oncoming traffic. In some cases, they’re so solid you could pound them with a sledgehammer with little effect. They truly can represent a serious road hazard. The problem is that it’s difficult to tell how solidly they’re packed when you see them on the road, left their unwittingly by another driver. Either way, your best bet is to try to avoid them. But you want to be careful dodging blocks of ice in the road, too. You need...

Timely maintenance is even more important with your Johnsburg Electric Vehicle

Even if you have an electric vehicle in your Johnsburg driveway, maintenance is still critical. You pull out of your Johnsburg driveway and you watch the gas stations go by as you smile from behind the wheel of your EV – Electric Vehicle. Of course, at some point, you will have to stop and charge the battery but you still take some comfort that you’re not standing next to your car as the fuel pumps into your tank. One of the true comforts you take with your EV is that the mechanics of your vehicle are simplified. You don’t have to worry about the engine breaking down anymore, and we all know how costly that can be. But there’s more to your EV vehicle than you may have considered when you first parked it in your Johnsburg driveway. Many of the parts found on gasoline-driven vehicles are also present on your EV. These require the same maintenance as your gasoline-powered vehicle. For instance, you EV still has: Tires and Wheels Brakes Steering and Suspension Windshield Wipers and So...

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