When this McHenry summer started, it worked great. The fan blew cold air out of the vents quickly responding to the hot days that we were already experiencing back then. But now, only half-a-dozen weeks later, your car, truck or SUV’s air conditioning just doesn’t seem to keep up.

Is it hotter out now than it was then or is your vehicle’s AC system fading, fading, fading until it reaches a point where all it will blow is hot air out of the vents? It is possible.

An air conditioning system in a car, truck or SUV may be up to any temperature a McHenry summer will throw at it. But, a system that was strong when summer started may have lost its mojo as summer continued.

If a component of your vehicle’s air conditioning system breaks, the change may be immediate and dramatic. But that’s not the way it always happens.

Often, when a car, truck or SUV’s AC system fails, it does so slowly and over time. From day to day, you don’t notice the change. The air conditioning fails so gradually that it’s only after a period of time that you can notice something is wrong.

With that in mind, it is possible that, though your vehicle’s AC worked fine earlier this summer, it may not be working right now.

Your car, truck or SUV’s air conditioning may have developed a slow leak and its charge of coolant is slowly fading. Or a part of the system is progressively getting worse. Whatever the cause, the end result is that the AC has to work longer and harder to cool you off in the vehicle.

One of the first ways you may notice this is that it takes longer for you to cool off in the car. You may notice that the air doesn’t feel as cool coming out of the vent.

If you have any doubts about your car, truck or SUV’s AC system, the first thing to do is to check the controls. Make sure you haven’t accidentally changed the settings. But if the settings are set to the maximum, and the air conditioning isn’t responding accordingly, you may want to have the system checked out.

We have enough of our McHenry summer left to justify fixing your car, truck or SUV’s air conditioning now.