Ensuring Your Heater and Defroster Works Properly

You don't ever really appreciate your heater and defroster until one of two things happens. The time that you might appreciate your defroster and heater is when the snow starts to fly. The second (and often the more tragic) is when these no longer work as well as they used to. Ensuring your heater and defroster work properly is a simple and easy preventative care measure that anyone can do. Better yet, it is something that doesn't take very long at all or even cost any significant money.

The best possible way to ensure that your car's heating and defrosting system is working properly is to take your car into trained professionals and have them take a look. However, there are a few drawbacks to this method, in both time and money. Instead, why not check yourself, and only take it into the professionals when you know that something is wrong? This is going to help you save time, money, and also ensure that your heater and defroster are working properly.

• Temperature. Drive your car for roughly 15 minutes, which should be enough time to warm up the engine and the heater, and have the temperature turned on high and the blower turned to medium. After driving around, park the car and test the temperature by sticking thermometers into the vents and checking the reading. The temperature should read between 115 and 120, but if not then you are going to want to look at your engine coolant and your temperature door motor.
• Engine coolant. Believe it or not, your engine coolant is going to play a large role in how well the heater and defroster work on your car. You should always begin your exam by checking to make sure that engine coolant is clean and filled to the proper level. If not, refill or replace as necessary.
• Temperature door motor. Another thing that you are going to need to check is called the temperature door motor. In the vast majority of vehicles this can be found near the glove compartment or under the dashboard, though you should always double check with your owners' manual or a repair manual to make sure. When you open the compartment door you should be able to see or hear the motor and shaft turning, if you can't then this is more than likely the problem. Simply tell your mechanic what the problem is and they will replace the assembly (problem solved).
• Hoses. Finally, you should always check the hoses in your car's engine. Make sure that there is no debris clogging anything, and that all the hoses are in good working order. If any debris is found, remove it, and if any of the hoses are old, brittle, or cracked then replace them.