Your Car’s Overheating — What Should You Do?

Don’t let an overheating car cause you to panic. While it might be stressful to watch the temperature gauge rise, keeping your cool can ensure your overheating car recovers quickly.

Turn Off Your A/C

As soon as you notice your car begins to overheat, immediately turn off the air conditioning. Since cars are more likely to overheat in hot summer weather, this won’t be comfortable for you, but it’s necessary to take the stress off the engine. Open your windows to get fresh air.

Turn On Your Heat

Another move that might save your overheating car from dying completely is to crank the heat up. When you do this, heat moves from your engine into the passenger compartment, relieving some of the pressure under the hood.

Rev Your Engine

If your engine starts to overheat while you’re sitting at a stoplight or stuck in traffic, put the car in park and rev the engine. This makes the water pump and fan circulate more air and water through the radiator, helping to cool it down.

See Smoke? Find a Safe Place to Pull Over

When you start to see smoke pouring out from under the hood, you have no choice but to pull over. Find an open area where oncoming and passing traffic will notice you and be able to steer clear. You also should make sure it’s an area that a tow truck can easily access, just in case your overheating car does not recover.

As soon as you’ve pulled over, get out of the car and move to a safe location, especially if you notice flames or detect a burning odor. In these cases, call 911 and explain your car may be on fire.

Keep Coolant On Hand

If you find yourself dealing with an overheating car more often than you’d like, don’t leave your home without a supply of coolant in the trunk. Replenishing the coolant reservoir can help get your car back on the road faster.

Don’t Touch the Hood or Engine

While filling the radiator up with coolant is a good idea, you shouldn’t touch the hood or the radiator cap until the car has completely cooled off. You will have to wait at least 30 minutes, possibly more, before opening the hood. Otherwise you could become seriously injured from the steam, and adding coolant to a still-hot engine can crack the engine block.

Call for Towing

If you notice that the coolant is completely empty, don’t try to drive the car again. Instead, call a towing service to take your car to the nearest mechanic.

You can depend on Stauffer’s Towing to be there for you when you’re dealing with an overheating car — call us whenever you need emergency towing.