Cooling System & Radiator

Your cooling system does an unglamorous job that everything else depends on: keeping the engine at the temperature it was designed to run at. When it stops doing that, things go wrong quickly. Overheating is one of the fastest ways to turn a small problem into a very expensive one — a $40 hose can take out a cylinder head if it lets go at the wrong moment.

In Ontario the coolant is working hard year-round. In January it’s stopping the block from freezing; in July it’s stopping it from boiling. Coolant doesn’t last forever, and once it’s past its life it stops protecting against corrosion — which is what quietly eats radiators, heater cores and water pumps from the inside.

What we do

• Coolant service and flush — draining the old coolant, flushing the system, and refilling with the correct specification for your vehicle
• Radiator repair and replacement
• Leak diagnosis — pressure testing to find where it’s actually going, rather than guessing
• Water pumps, thermostats and hoses
• Heater core problems — often the reason your heat has stopped working
• Overheating diagnosis — working out the cause rather than just topping it up

Signs worth booking in for

• The temperature gauge climbing higher than it normally sits
• A puddle under the car — coolant is usually green, orange or pink
• A sweet smell after driving
• Having to top up the coolant regularly
• Heat that’s gone lukewarm or cold
• Steam from under the hood

Driving an overheating engine even a short distance is how a repair becomes a replacement. Call us and we’ll tell you what to do next.

Coolant isn’t a lifetime fluid

It’s one of the most commonly overlooked services on a vehicle, mostly because nothing feels wrong until something breaks. A coolant flush is inexpensive, straightforward, and one of the better returns on maintenance spending there is — particularly around the 100,000 km mark.

We’ve written about that in more detail: the 100,000 km service, and why a coolant flush and transmission service belong together.

Book it in

If your temperature gauge is doing something new, you’re topping up coolant, or you just want the system checked before a long drive, give us a call. We’ll tell you what it needs — and what it doesn’t.

You might also want oil changes and preventive maintenance or engine diagnostics and repair.