AUTO REPAIR: How does heat affect your car?

Should you idle your car in the summer?  What is it that “overheating” does to your car, and what is the best way to avoid that?  Why did my dad always tell me not to run the air conditioner when I am idling my car?  All of these are great questions. Your auto repair professional can answer any of them, but there follows a few thoughts on the subject that I think might be helpful.  If you have ever driven in the Austin, TX heat in bumper to bumper traffic, yo know that you have to have air conditioning to live.  It is just a have to have in summer in Austin.  What does it do to your car when you are in stop and go traffic?  To really understand this, you have to have some know how about how your car cools itself.  If you have a little knowledge of cars and how they work, you know that your car is powered by what is called a water cooled engine, or a liquid cooled engine.  This means that liquid is pumped into and out of your engine, moving that liquid across an apparatus that is designed to remove as much heat as possible from that liquid before moving it back into the heart of the engine to carry more heat out of the engine.  If you understand this, you will know the secrets of how to lessen the load on your engine.  One tip: never drive in bumper to bumper traffic.  Find something to do when rush hour traffic is heaviest.  You know you are burning extra time anyway, so find a library, set a end of day meeting, anything to stay out of traffic.  Some people even move their day so that they arrive at and leave from work in non-rush hour times.  What this does for your engine is hard to measure.  The years of beating up on your engine as it tries to cool itself in non-optimum conditions is a tough thing to get a clear read on.  You will certainly save yourself on hoses and radiators though, that is for sure.  The pressure that builds up in a hot engine wears all the parts involved that much faster.   Now, when you talk about overheating, this is what is going down with your engine.  Once your engine runs hot too much, you are going to spring a leak somewhere.  This is unavoidable anyway, it is just a natural thing that happens as a car engine ages.  You can ask any car repair professional, it is just a part of a car’s life.  However, there is no reason to hurry the process.  Once your car springs a leak in the cooling system, it is really important that you find that leak and stop it.  The reason is clear; leaks have a way of getting much worse just when you don’t need them to.  Like, when you are in bumper to bumper traffic and your car’s engine is under more pressure than normal.  This can blow a hose that has a slow leak in it, happens all the time.  The front side, when your leak first starts, is the most dangerous.  This is when your coolant level can fall dangerously low, causing your engine to overheat.  Just once is enough in many cars to warp the head, and a lot of times that means you are buying a new engine.  You just don’t want to mess around with an engine that is getting hot on a regular basis.  If this sounds like you, you have to get your car checked out by a car repair professional as fast as you possibly can.