Better to have your McHenry car’s AC checked now before summer’s heat sets in

You glance at the clock in the dashboard and realize that, if the McHenry traffic doesn’t start moving, you’ll be late for that important meeting. To make matters worse, for some reason, the car’s air conditioning isn’t quite doing its job today. You feel a bead of sweat rolling down your cheek and it prompts you to glance down at your pits. Sure enough, they’re soaked. This is not good.

It’s uncomfortable on hot McHenry days when the air conditioning doesn’t work. It’s even worse when you have somewhere important to go and your best wardrobe is soaking in perspiration. The fan is blowing but the air coming out of the vents feels hotter rather than cooler.

A car’s air conditioning can break down entirely. For instance:

The fan can stop working
The air compressor can freeze up
You can have a leak and lose all your AC coolant
Seals can fail
A hose can break
A belt can break
Mold can grow in the coil and block the air (not to mention making it bad to breath)

But, it doesn’t take a complete breakdown of the car’s air conditioning for the system to leave you sweating. In some cases, the coolant is low and the air conditioner’s ability to provide cool air inside the car is hampered. It can get so bad that, for all intents and purposes, the air conditioning isn’t working at all. Or, it can simply make it difficult for the AC to do its job to your expectations.

Those muggy, hot days of summer haven’t arrived yet but, be assured, they are coming. You can wait until they’re here to see if your car’s AC is up to the job or you can have it checked now.

One problem with turning on the air conditioning in your car and holding your hand to the vent to see how it’s working is that, since it isn’t that terribly hot in McHenry yet, you won’t get a true test of the AC’s ability. A qualified auto repair technician knows how to check your car’s AC to tell if it will work to designed capacity in the Dog Days of Summer.

Comments

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...

Sap, Sun and Droppings conspire to attack your Richmond car’s finish

Who doesn't love summer time in Richmond? But this is also the time of year when sap, sun and droppings attack your car's finish. It’s a beautiful summer day in Richmond, IL, so you take the car to Richmond Carwash and give it a thorough cleaning. Or maybe you go for an entire detailing. On the other hand, you grab a bucket, sponge, brush and appropriate cleaners, drag the hose out to the driveway and wash the car yourself. Before you know it, the car is clean and shiny, almost like the day when it was new, right? But what does Murphy’s Law say about washing your car? Inevitably, if you wash your car, you can count on rain. It almost seems like, as soon as you give the car a good bath, the rain clouds start plotting and changing course to head straight for your Richmond home or wherever else you park your car. Let’s imagine that Murphy takes a pass when it comes to applying the Law of clean-car-precipitation onto your vehicle. You have the car washed but it doesn’t rain. You’ve...

Performance Unlimited Blog

Search This Blog