Why is my car overheating and what should I do about it?

Why is my car overheating and what should I do about it? Welcome to Mercie J, where compassion and craftsmanship come together. I'm Rick Smith, master certified technician.

Well what you should do about it is shut the car off and get it towed in and get it checked out. If you are low on coolant or radiator fluid or antifreeze or whatever you want to call it, that can be the cause of your overheating and if it is, you can do damage very quickly to your engine. We have a very lightweight engines, aluminum parts expanding and contracting quickly. It's very easy to blow a head gasket or do damage if you drive a car that's overheating.

So why is it overheating? Well it could be low on coolant. You could have a fan that's not working. You could even have something as simple as a plastic bag that's blown up and got caught in the radiator. It's a pretty big question for me to answer but basically we have to have a radiator with air flow and we have to have water pump pumping coolant through the engine to keep it cool. One of the quick tests you can do is see if your heaters working. If your heater is so hot that it almost burns your hands, then it's probably full of coolant and it is probably something else. If it's not then there's a good chance that it's low on coolant and you better just shut it down.

I hope this has been informational to you and until next time, safe travels and blessings to you.