Skip to main content

Now that your engine is cool, what about you?

Is your car, truck or SUV’s AC up to the challenge of a McHenry summer?

Hopefully, you’ve taken the appropriate steps to ensure that your car, truck or SUV engine has what it takes to stay cool this McHenry summer. But what about you? 

When you’re driving through McHenry on a hot day, do you feel the cool and comforting air from the vents as your car, truck or SUV’s air conditioning efficiently keeps you cool? There are days ahead when you’ll definitely want to be able to answer that question affirmatively. 

Summers in this neck of the woods can be a might bit uncomfortable. Heck, they can be downright sultry and hot. Your vehicle was almost certainly built with air conditioning as a standard feature. Shouldn’t it work efficiently?

Keeping your engine cool in summer involves ensuring that it has enough fresh coolant to carry the heat out of the engine and through the radiator while the fan pulls cool air through to carry the heat away. You want the right thermostat in your engine to let the coolant flow when it’s supposed to. But there is other equipment built into the car to keep you and other passengers cool.

Cooling the cabin (where the driver and passengers sit) of your car requires an air conditioning system. That includes a compressor, condenser, an evaporator and a condenser fan. It also requires valves and a dryer. The system is then filled with refrigerant.

The refrigerant needs to maintain proper pressure levels. And all those parts of the system need to work together properly to achieve the AC system’s goal of cooling the cabin of your car, truck or SUV. 

Additionally, you need a fan, a filter, and a duct system with vents to blow the cooled air into the car. 

When your vehicle’s air conditioning is working properly, on the hottest days, you’ll find that it will get you cooler than you want. You’ll even find yourself feeling cold. But the AC system also comes with controls so you can determine how much you want to cool the cabin.

Let’s imagine, for a moment, however, that your car, truck or SUV’s air conditioning is not working as efficiently as it should. The first thing you may notice is that it takes longer to reach that comfortable temperature you prefer. You may also notice that, as hard as it works, your vehicle’s AC just can’t seem to cool the inside of your vehicle enough; it can’t keep up with the heat outside.

McHenry will get hot this summer. But, if your car, truck or SUV air conditioning system is working properly, it won’t pose a significant problem for you.


McHenry oil change


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

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...

October 20 Hootenanny will benefit veterans with PTSD

Been to a Hootenanny lately? When you read that question did you ask, “What?” Well, if you have gone to a Hootenanny in a while, or if you don’t know what a hootenanny is, we have an event for Oct. 20 that will clear up either question. From 6 p.m. to Midnight, Saturday, Oct. 20, MC3, the McHenry Area Chamber of Commerce business networking group, is helping to host an inaugural Veterans R&R Wild Horse Hootenanny at Beyond Stable Farm (11129 Rte. 176, Woodstock). The event will benefit Veterans R&R Operation Wild Horse. Operation Wild Horse serves veterans with PTSD (Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder). Working with the horses has proven to have an incredibly calming effect on the veterans. And, it’s good for the horses, too, rescued wild mustangs. This means that the hootenanny is for a very good cause. But, it’s also a lot of fun. So, what is a hootenanny? According to a Google search, a hootenanny is “an informal gathering with folk music and sometimes dancing.” The V...