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.