Your Wonder Lake car is made of a variety of materials. These include:

• Steel
• Plastic
• Aluminum
• Glass
• Fiberglass
• Lead
• Copper 
• Titanium
• Magnesium

One material not included in the list above that is essential to the manufacture and operation of your vehicle is rubber.

Every time you pull you car out of your Wonder Lake driveway, you're depending on rubber belts and hoses to do their job. If they don't, you're in trouble.

We’re all familiar with the rubber used to make the tires you roll on when you head down a Wonder Lake Street and off into the world beyond. But rubber is used in other parts of your car and is no less essential there.

Your windows are sealed in rubber to keep the elements out. Even windows that go up and down seal into rubber gaskets when they’re closed. There are rubber bushings and mounts that help to reduce the jarring nature of the road on you, your car and its mechanical components.

Wires are generally coated in rubber. These keeps electrical components from shorting out when making contact with each other or other metal parts of the vehicle.

Last week, this blog focused on your car’s cooling system. The rubber that is part of the cooling system is utterly and completely essential to the cooling system.

The hoses that carry coolant between the radiator and the engine are made of rubber. The coolant that passes through them does so at high temperatures. In the winter, before the car heats up, the antifreeze passes through at near freezing temperatures (the temperature of freezing for coolant is lower than the temperature for water, or it certainly should be).

The hoses are flexible so that can be matched up to the mounting points and so they can handle the steady vibration of a running engine or the jarring nature of going down the road.

You also have belts made of rubber that turn the water pump to keep the coolant moving through the engine and into the radiator (the radiator is rubber mounted to help it withstand the shocks of the road, too). The belts also drive the alternator and the power steering pump.

The problem with rubber parts is that they are made with petroleum. Over time, the petroleum will dry up and the rubber parts will fail. A rubber hose can burst or leak. A belt can break or stretch. In either case, you want to keep your rubber hoses and belts in good condition so you can leave your Wonder Lake home with confidence.