How to Check Your Radiator Fluid in a Vehicle

Video Transcript

" We’ve already checked the reservoir bottle, we’ve added some coolant to it to bring it up to a proper level, now we’re going to check the radiator. Now remember only check your radiator if the engine has sat for a very long time and the engine is cold you can put your hand on the upper radiator hose to check to see how warm it is, you can also squeeze the hose a little bit to see if there’s any pressure in it. If there’s pressure in it you’ll spill hot coolant everywhere you don’t want to do that, so the best time to check your radiator for the proper level is when its sat for a full night but all you have to do is you push down on your radiator cap, twist, pull it off and look at the fluid level it should be right at the top and this ones right at the top and its full. All you do is just put the cap back on push down and twist and it locks back in place and the reason why you have a radiator cap and a reservoir bottle because when the radiator gets hot it builds up pressure, it pushes coolant into your reservoir bottle, when the radiator cools back down there’s a vacuum in here of the coolant that’s cooled down and it’ll pull it right back from that reservoir bottle back into the radiator and that way your radiator always stays full. That’s why you check your reservoir bottle to make sure it’s always full of coolant and that’s why you check your radiator to make sure it’s full of coolant. That’s how you check your radiator but remember check your radiator when it’s cold never, never when it’s hot."