Can I just add Coolant to my Car?

Can I just add coolant or antifreeze or radiator fluid, whatever you wanna call it and just keep driving? Welcome to Mercie J auto care where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I’m Rick Smith, master certified technician.

What I want you to understand is if you have a coolant leak and you’re having to add coolant, often times you’ll get an air pocket in the system. Here’s the danger that happens. Imagine that I grab something hot with this glove, as you can see I missing a finger. I’m gonna burn this finger but the rest of my hand is still protecting. Well we have some big parts in an engine like an engine block, cylinder head, manifolds all sorts of things that are depending upon that coolant. The problem is, if we have an air pocket, we can overheat just one little part of the engine and do serious engine damage.

The other problem we have is imagine that on my hand, I only have nerves in this finger nowhere else. So if I overheat this, I won’t even know it, it will burn but this finger is not overheating so I won’t see it and that can happen with your gauge. So if the sending unit for your gauges is somewhere that’s not overheating, you can still be doing damage to your engine even though the gauge looks OK.

Bottom line is at Mercie J, if you have any coolant leaks and you're having to add coolant, radiator fluid, antifreeze, whatever you call it, we recommend you don’t drive the car and you get it towed in. That way we can make sure we get it fixed right before you do any engine damage. Thanks for watching until next time, safe travels and blessings to you.