It seems that summer is the best time of year for people and for cars. Long forgotten are cold starts and long warm-ups, freezing of locks and freezing of doors, dealing with the need to clean the car from snow and ice on the windshield wipers. But in the summer some parts of the car have a hard time.
Let me remind you what problems there can be in the summer with the most expensive unit in a car – the engine.
Overheating
This is the leader of engine trouble in the summer heat. There are two possible reasons: either the cooling system can’t handle it, or the engine is producing more heat than expected.
Not quite usable cooling system, which worked at least in other seasons, exhausts its capacities in summer.
What can go wrong in this system?
- Check the level of antifreeze first. Because if it is low, normal cooling of the motor cannot be achieved. But keep in mind that this is only possible with an engine that has cooled down to at least 60°C. First find and repair the cause of the leakage, then top up the antifreeze to the prescribed level.
- Second among the reasons is a clogged radiator of the cooling system. In addition, the heat transfer can be poor both outside and inside. The solution is simple: flush the radiator from the outside without dismantling, which, unfortunately, is greatly hindered by the heat exchanger of the air conditioner. If it does not help, then you need to remove the radiator, inspect for a large number of jammed fins, try to flush from the inside, and if everything is bad, switch to a new one.
- The next reason could be a malfunction of the cooling fan. Everything is simple here – fix it, you can’t drive through the summer without a fan.
- The thermostat can also malfunction. Incomplete opening of the valve will lead to a deterioration in the supply of antifreeze from the engine to the radiator. The judgment is change.
- Rarely, but there are malfunctions of the coolant pump. For example, an impeller may “lose” its blades or spin on the shaft. No fluid circulation – rapid overheating.
The thermostat is easily accessible in many modern cars. Even antifreeze does not need to be completely drained when replacing the thermostat.
Why can an engine produce more heat? This can be caused by low-octane fuel, to which the smart engine management system responds by setting the late ignition. This leaves more heat in the engine.
Oil consumption
In summer, the engine can remain without oil. The reasons are increased waste and lack of level control.
Engine oil becomes thinner due to an increase in engine temperature as a whole. An important role in cooling the oil is played by the blowing of the engine oil sump, which contains most of the oil. After all, the difference is clear, air with a temperature of -30°C or +30°C blows onto the pallet at a speed. And oil coolers on modern cars are almost never found. This is why thinner oil burns faster even with a serviceable engine.
In the summer we drive on good dry roads at higher speeds. Enthusiasts of driving at a prohibited speed of more than 150 km/h can encounter a very high engine oil consumption. So much so that if you don’t look at the instrument panel indicator lights, one of which indicates low oil pressure, the engine can be “screwed up” very quickly.
Huge pressure
A large load wears out the motor faster and can sometimes lead to complete failure.
In winter, cars with a trailer are usually not to be found on the road. But in the summer, who carries building materials on a trailer to the dacha, which is a boat or yacht on a trailer, and who tows a camper trailer behind him. The engine is not easy in such conditions. You have to work on near maximum modes.
But the engines of passenger cars, unlike trucks, usually depend on much lower loads. Such an operation at the limit of possibilities will increase engine wear, and if there was already a problem with some way of connecting parts, it can get worse. Could grab the crankshaft liner or create an abrasion on the cylinder wall. All this is made possible by the two problems mentioned earlier: high engine temperature and liquid oil. The recommendations are simple – for building materials it is better to order a GAZelle, and for towing large accessories for outdoor activities you need to buy a suitable car – a frame SUV or a pickup.
take a sip of water
In the summer, floods occur in many regions of our country, and even residents of relatively prosperous Moscow are faced with huge puddles on the roads. Tunnels, for example, really like to be filled with water. And if the driver, out of ignorance or out of stupid bravado, tries to slip through a deep puddle at high speed, quite a bit of water will fall into the engine’s air intake. If it has reached the engine cylinders, it will cause water hammer. The piston, on its way to top dead center, will try to compress the water, which, as you know, is incompressible. This will damage the piston or connecting rod. And this is a major overhaul or replacement of the engine by contract.
a lot of dust
Motorists from the Middle Strip or the northern regions of our country, going to the southern steppe regions, will encounter a huge amount of dust. The air filter is designed to clean the air entering the engine. And what’s most interesting, when it gets dirty, it starts to clean the air even better than a new one. But with extreme pollution a breakthrough of the filter curtain is possible – and all the dirt is in the motor at some point.
Another possible problem: on relatively dust-free roads you can drive for a long time with a leaking intake duct without knowing it. Somewhere the tube is cracked, somewhere the clamp is not tight, so the air goes past the filter. It is necessary to be on such a machine in a dusty steppe, and the same dust in large quantities will begin to enter the engine, accelerating its wear. I recommend car owners who are going on such a dusty trip to fit a new filter and possibly bring a spare filter. And of course inspect the entire intake duct from the air filter housing to the cylinder head for leaks.
Turbocharged
Turbocharged engines, which get a lot of power from a small displacement, already suffer from all of the above, but they also have their weak point. If after a drive with a lot of acceleration, and even in the heat, the engine of the car is stopped, then the turbocharger will not like it. The fact is that the oil pump stops supplying lubricant to the bearings of the turbocharger, and the rotor will still rotate due to inertia at a frequency of tens of thousands of revolutions. Bearing fitting possible. Prevention is simple: run the engine for a minute or two after a hard ride before turning the engine off.
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Follow these simple recommendations and your communication with the car in the best season of the year will bring only positive emotions.
- How you can save on maintenance and repair is described here.
- “Behind the wheel” can now be read in Yandex.Zen.
The expert explained why operation in summer is no less dangerous for an engine than a cold start in severe frost.
