Time for a Radiator Repair? Visit Your Salem Nissan Dealer

Your car’s radiator is vital for controlling your engine temperature. If your engine is allowed to get too hot, it can overheat and suffer catastrophic damage. As your Nissan dealer, we’d like you to know some signs that it’s time for a radiator repair.

Clogged or Damaged Fins

The fins are the thin horizontal tubes on the front of your radiator. Hot liquid coolant is pumped into these fins and cooled by the airflow from the radiator grille. These fins are made of thin aluminum, a metal that provides the fastest cooling possible.

Radiator fins can be damaged by debris, including small stones and even sand. Damaged fins will prevent the coolant from entering your radiator for cooling. The interior of the fins can also become clogged with dirt and other engine debris brought into the radiator by the coolant. If enough of the fins become clogged, your radiator won’t work.

Broken Water Pump

Liquid coolant flows through your engine to absorb heat. This heat is taken to the radiator for cooling. This system requires a pump to move the liquid at high speed and under high pressure. The pumping function is the responsibility of the water pump. When coolant is released, the water pump will begin pumping coolant through your engine.

A water pump is a relatively simple comment, and it can eventually break. If your water pump has broken, coolant will still be released but won’t be able to move. The lack of constantly moving heat-absorbing coolant will cause your engine temperature to increase. A rapidly rising engine temperature can lead to overheating. We can quickly replace a damaged or broken water pump to fix this problem.

Damaged Radiator Fan

Most of the time, the hot coolant in the radiator is cooled by airflow as we’ve seen. When your car moves faster, the airflow through the grille increases and your engine cools faster. This cooling process can only work effectively if your car is moving. If you pull over and your engine is idling, airflow is almost nil. For circumstances like this, your engine has a cooling fan.

When your engine is running, but your car is stationary, the increasing temperature will activate the thermal switch. This switch controls a fan at the rear of your radiator. The radiator fan will switch on and blow across the fins to cool the hot coolant inside them. When the engine temperature drops, the fan will automatically switch off. Our technicians will examine the fan and either repair it or replace the radiator if the fan has broken.

If your engine seems to be running hotter than it should, call our service department at Nissan of Salem.