Review Car

Ten Tips For Maintaining and Repairing Radiator

Once caught in a traffic jam, you may experience one of the worst incidences, a radiator leak. If your engine is overheated, it may have cracks thus leading to expensive repairs or even complete engine replacement. Obviously, maintaining and repairing your car radiator regularly are far more affordable than a complete engine overhaul.

The following are some points for maintaining and repairing car radiator:

1. A damaged coolant hose is the main culprit for radiator damage, if there are no auto repair garages nearby, you can patch the hose with thick duct tape.

2. Exercise extreme caution; let your car cools down for half an hour before making emergency repairs otherwise you may end up with some injuries. It can be very dangerous to deal with a hot coolant.

3. In the case you find a pinhole leak in the radiator, you can pour some pepper to the radiator. Once the car is cool enough, open the filler cap and pour some pepper.

4. Restart the car and warm it to let the pepper mix with the hot coolant. Pepper would circulate around the cooling system and plug any pinhole leak.

5. After this temporary fix you can take your car immediately to the mechanic for a proper repair.

6. The magic of pepper will not last long and this is not a permanent solution. Pepper should get cleared out of the cooling system quickly, as it can harm sensitive sensors in your car.

7. If there are leaks on the radiator rubber, pepper won’t help. When the car is already cool, you can trace the cause of the steam leakage by opening the hood. Upon finding the hole in the rubber, you should make sure that it is completely dry. Then tear off two to three inches of duct tape and place it over the leak. Place the duct tape firmly by pressing it evenly. Tear larger pieces of duct tape and place on top of the previous one.

8. If there is little or no coolant left in the radiator, you can add tap water as an interim solution to allow you reach the destination.

9. Keeping the radiator clean can also avoid overheating problems because oil and other hard deposits may block the cooling system. Cleaning radiator regularly is much cheaper and easier than repairing damages due to overheating.

10. Checking the coolant level in your radiator is a good thing to do. If the level is too low, you should buy premixed coolant that is readily available in most stores.