Check Your Vehicle Coolant and Prevent Overheating

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Check your coolant / radiator fluid

Your car’s radiator keeps your engine from overheating. As your vehicle drives along, the cool outside air rushes over the fins on the radiator, and passes through its many channels. This cools down the water inside the radiator, and the water then passes back through the engine, cooling it down.

Coolant is a liquid that you add to the water in your radiator. It increases the water’s boiling point and reduces its freezing point, so your car runs cool in summer and doesn’t have problems with ice blocking the system in winter. It also contains an anti-corrosion additive which increases the longevity of your radiator and other cooling system components.

If you don’t have enough coolant in the radiator, it can’t do its job properly, and your engine will get too hot. Your temperature gauge (near your speedo on the instrument panel) will go right up — or at least higher than usual.

If you see this happen, you should stop and call for assistance as soon as you can safely do so. If you don’t, your engine may overheat, which can cause thousands of dollars’ worth of damage — you may even need to replace the engine.

IMPORTANT:Never try to add coolant, remove the radiator cap or check coolant levels while the engine is hot. Even when your temperature gauge is reporting a normal temperature, the radiator — in fact the entire engine — will be way too hot to touch. Hot enough to burn. And if you remove the radiator cap when the engine is hot, it will spew boiling hot water all over you.

To help ensure this doesn’t happen, you should check your coolant level once every couple of months. Even if your car has shown no signs of over-heating.

To check / add coolant

1 Ensure the engine is cold.

2 Locate your car’s coolant reservoir, and check that the level is above the lowest marked level and below the highest marked point. If you’re not sure where to locate your coolant reservoir, refer to your vehicle handbook or ask your local AHG dealership for assistance. (Tell them you looked in the glove box, under the spare tyre, and even on the back parcel shelf, but you just couldn’t find it.)

3 If the level is too low, check your vehicle’s manual to see what type of coolant it requires. If you add the wrong type of coolant, it may be less effective at cooling your engine, and may even become corrosive. If you can’t find out what coolant type to use, use distilled water in the meantime, then ask your local AHG dealership for advice.

4 If the coolant level is OK, but your car is showing signs of overheating, you should make an appointment at your local AHG dealership. Coolant loses its effectiveness over time, so you may need your car’s cooling system flushed and its coolant replaced.

5 If the coolant level is OK, and your car is showing no signs of overheating, great! You don’t need to do anything. Simply set a reminder to check it again in a month or so.