Summer has come to Wonder Lake and with it the heat is here to challenge the ability of your car, truck or SUV’s coolant system to keep your engine cool and keep you from sweating on the side of the road with the hood up and steam rising.

An engine can overheat on one of Wonder Lake’s coldest of days. If you’re vehicle’s coolant isn’t up to par, you could overheat on a 28-degrees-below January night. But, when the thermometer climbs, a weak coolant system is more quickly exposed.

The strength of a coolant system is in the quantity and quality of the liquid coolant in the system. When fresh and new, a car, truck or SUV’s coolant will capture and carry away more heat. Overtime, it’s ability to perform this essential task diminishes. The older the coolant, the farther away it is from its original capacity for cooling the engine.

As for the quantity of coolant in your car, truck or SUV engine, if it’s filled to the proper level to begin with, as long as there aren’t any leaks, the quantity should remain fairly constant for an extended period of time. The key part of that sentence is “… as long as there aren’t any leaks.”

If your car, truck or SUV’s cooling system has any leaks, the level of coolant in the system will consistently fall over time. If there is a catastrophic leak, such as when a radiator hose breaks, the loss of coolant is rapid and the problem is immediate.

If the leak is minor, you may not even notice it over time. You may see a few drops on your Wonder Lake driveway but, otherwise, the leak can go unnoticed until the engine overheats and leaves you stranded on the side of the road somewhere.

Leaks can also occur from gaskets, the radiator, the heater core and within the engine. In the latter case, the coolant could leak into the engine cylinder and burn off with the fuel. When this occurs in any serious quantity, you’ll usually notice white smoke coming out of the exhaust.

Another potential problem with the cooling system is where the thermostat doesn’t operate properly. The thermostat is designed to open and close at particular temperatures. It is closed when you first start the car, truck or SUV engine. This holds coolant inside the engine until it warms up. But, when the temperature reaches a certain temperature, usually somewhere around 200-degrees Fahrenheit, it opens so the coolant can flow through the radiator and so the engine fan can pull air through the radiator that carries away the heat.

All these parts – the coolant, radiator, fan, hoses, thermostat, etc., need to operate properly if you want to avoid finding yourself on the side of the road somewhere, possibly far from your Wonder Lake home.