Emergency Road Side Overheating
It's important to know what to do when your vehicle starts to overheat, but it's especially important on a road trip when you are far from home and not near anyone who could come and rescue you. Otherwise you might find yourself stuck on an vacant highway with no way to get help. So in order to help keep you safe, let's go over some steps that you can do if your vehicle overheats (especially if you're on a road trip).
1) Prevention
The first thing you should always do, is make sure your vehicles cooling system is in good shape before you ever leave the house. Make sure you don't have any coolant leaks, that all your hoses are new or at least not cracked or wrinkled. Make sure your radiator is full to the top and that your temperature gauge is in complete working order. Prevention will be your best medicine when it comes to overheating on the road.
2) Temperature Gauge
Your temperatures gauge is going to be your first warning that anything is wrong with your coolant system. Your vehicle isn't going to just magically burst into fits of steam and spraying coolant. It will first get very very hot, and you will be able to tell by keeping a regular check on your temperature gauge. You should do this anytime you are operating a vehicle, though it is even more important anytime you travel away from your cars normal environment.
3) Stop the Vehicle
Once you notice your temperature gauge crawling towards the red zone, or if you see steam coming from under the hood, it's time to pull your vehicle over. Do this as soon as is safely possible, don't wait or try to push your vehicle to get farther down the road. Otherwise you risk making your situation ten times worse. Pull the car over right away and make sure to put your hazard lights on, even if it's in the day time. Then make sure to turn everything else off in the car. You want to conserve energy in your vehicle until you need to use. No movies, chargers, radios, TVs or other accessories should be on. Only the hazard lights.
4) Wait - Cool Down
The first thing most people want to do, is to open their hood right away. While this may seem logical, what you aren't thinking about, is the potential for extremely hot coolant spraying under your hood, that could easily burn right through your skin if you get sprayed. So what you want to do, is give the car between 10 and 20 minutes to cool down before you do anything, including opening the hood.
5) Look Underneath & Inside
While you are waiting for your vehicle to cool down, there are two things you can do. First, check underneath your vehicle, and look to see if there is any apparent coolant leaking out. If there is, it will hit the ground. Once you've checked there, go inside your vehicle and check under the passenger and drivers area, pull up the carpet as best you can and check for any coolant leaks inside. If you find any inside, it suggests that your heater core is the culprit of the leak.
6) Open the Hood
Once you've given your vehicle a decent amount of time to cool down, it's time to open the hood. Be aware though, that there could still be spraying fluid, so open the hood carefully and protect your face above all. If you can get the hood open safely, prop it up and look around for any leaks. Make sure not to touch anything, as your engine and everything in the compartment will be very very hot. Even areas that you wouldn't think to be hot, could be, so just look for now, and don't touch. You specifically want to look at your coolant hoses and radiator. Check for any leaks anywhere. Look on the engine to see if there are even any small leaks, because even if there isn't any obvious coolant spraying out, you could have lost it while driving and there will still be a trail somewhere on the engine, hoses or radiator where it leaked out.
7) Check Coolant
Make sure that your vehicle has had a minimum of 30 minutes to cool down. I know it may seem like forever when you're sitting on the road, but it's better to wait even longer before you attempt to touch the radiator cap. There are just to many potential dangers from opening it to soon after your car has overheated, so wait as long as you can. Then make sure that you have a glove, thick cloth or at minimum, a bundled up t-shirt that you can use to remove the cap. Do so slowly, in case any pressure or coolant starts to come out. Once you get the cap open, look inside to see if there is any coolant near the top of the radiator coils. If there isn't, you are either out of coolant or low on coolant. This means you need to fill your radiator with water, coolant or a mixture of both.
8) Plug or Stop Leaks
If you have found a leak in your radiator, or even on the side of your engine block, there are a few temporary measures you can take to get your car to somewhere that it can be repaired, or at least to a town near by. The first, and often most convenient band aid for a leaking radiator, is a piece of chewing gum. Place it on the leak and then turn your engine on for a moment. The heat from the engine will glue the gum in place and keep it from falling out. The next thing you can try, is to put a piece of bread or a bun, and push it into the area that is leaking. The flour will easily go into place and the heat will help keep it in place. You want to avoid putting anything other than coolant or water in your radiator, but in the worst of times, you can use either a fresh egg or some pepper balls to poor into your radiator. With the pressure circulating from the coolant in there, it will plug the leak for a short time.
9) Change or Shorten Hoses
If you have found a leak or crack in one of your radiator hoses, you either need to replace the hose or shorten it. Often times, shortening the hose is your only option, though thankfully, most hoses are just long enough that you can shorten then just enough to get you to a safer place. If you are unlucky enough to find a crack or rupture in the middle of a hose, you'll need to get more creative to plug that leak. You can use duct tape, a ton of electrical tape, spare clothes tied on with panty hose or even thick leaves and some string.
10) Fill With Coolant
Most important of all, you need to make sure your vehicle is at least half full of coolant before you go anywhere. This is why it's always good to bring a few extra gallon jugs of water with you, as they can easily be used. Even better is if you carry a jug of 50/50 coolant and water. Though in an emergency situation, you can use melted water from a cooler, ice or even urine to temporarily add coolant to your radiator. You'll want a minimum of 80 oz of coolant, which is the equivalent of four 20 oz bottles of water or soda. Just make sure that if you use anything other than water or coolant, that you have your radiator flushed as soon as possible when you get to a safer place.
11) Call For Help
If there is nothing you can do to get your vehicle to a repair shop or a near by town, then it's time to call for help. A tow truck is what you are going to need at this point, and depending on how many passengers you have, you might also need a second car to carry your passengers to a safer place. Make sure to keep all accessories off in your vehicle while you wait. That way, if it ends up getting cold later or you need to charge your phone, you can do so later.
Before ending this article, I'd like to take a moment to talk more about being prepared. Whether you are just driving around town, or you are out on a road trip, it's important to have some things on you that can help you in case your vehicle overheats. The more you can carry with you, the less likely it is that you will have to spend hundreds of dollars being towed to your home or a repair shop.
- Screw Drivers - Flat Tip & Phillips
- Spare Coolant Hoses & Clamps
- Radiator Stop Leak Fluid
- Battery Jumper Box
- 2 Gallons of Water
- A Sharp Knife
- Duct Tape
- Coolant
