How to Stop a Car From Overheating

Video Transcript

"Good afternoon, my name's Tom Brintzenhofe. Certified master mechanic out of Reading, PA and today I'm going to answer the question of "how do I stop my car from overheating?" The easiest way I can tell you is maintenance, maintenance and maintenance. Change your radiator fluid, antifreeze, on a regular basis every thirty to fifty thousand miles. Do that religiously. Make sure it's flushed out at least every two to three years. Take it to a local garage because you really can't do that in your back yard. Have that done. Always make sure that your fluids are always full, topped off, in good condition. Make sure they're not all dirty. If you change it routinely you wont have that problem. The easiest way I can tell you to prevent your car from overheating is basically make sure your belts are good. Make sure your fluids are full. Make sure your antifreeze is in good condition. If you're not sure how to check your antifreeze a lot of garages out there will do it for free. Just pull right up, they'll come out with a little, what they call a hydrometer and they'll check it out that way. Antifreeze is a big key. Without your antifreeze it's going to overheat. You want to keep that right 50/50 mixture. Anything more or less than that you'd have freezing problems and in dead of summer when it's over 100 degrees you might even have some overheating problems. The other issue you might want to take care of is make sure your electric fan works, or your clutch fan. Make sure they're in good condition. If either one of them aren't working it's definitely going to overheat. But those are your big, your key components on how to keep your vehicle from overheating."