Be proactive in checking your car's air conditioner more often during hot weather.

A few days ago, Le Van Tach auto garage encountered a customer in Vinh Phuc who brought his 2011 KIA Morning car in to have the air conditioning system checked because the owner no longer felt cool when using it.

Based on the preliminary inspection results, instead of receiving information about the air conditioning system, the car owner was informed by the workshop staff that the car engine may have a serious problem and needed to be disassembled for a detailed inspection.

Overheating of the engine is one of the reasons why the air conditioner loses its cooling ability. Photo: NVCC

After removing the engine cover to check, the car owner was surprised to see many internal parts burned black, and the cylinder bore showed signs of water leakage.

"Luckily, the owner brought the car in for inspection in time, so the engine did not seize and the connecting rod was not bent, although there were signs of water entering the combustion chamber," said engineer Le Van Tach.

The cause of this car's loss of cool air conditioning is determined to be a punctured engine radiator that causes insufficient coolant, leading to engine overheating. When the engine overheats, the engine control box will send a signal to the air conditioning control box to turn off the compressor.

Therefore, the owner had to leave the car at the garage to handle and replace the problematic parts. The most serious of which was replacing the engine cover and overhauling the entire engine assembly. The estimated cost of repair and replacement was nearly 40 million VND.

Engineer Tach said that the car owner saw the dashboard display warning about low coolant level during use, but due to lack of experience and knowledge about cars, when he saw the coolant was low, he just added more to make it enough, not thinking that this would affect many other things, including the air conditioning system.

How to determine the cause of the air conditioner no longer cooling

If the air conditioner loses its ability to cool while driving, there are usually two possibilities. One is that the air conditioning system has a problem, the other is that the engine is overheating. The way to tell whether the air conditioner loses its ability to cool due to a faulty air conditioning system or an overheating engine will depend on the driver's feelings.

Not paying attention to the engine cooling process has caused car owners to spend a large amount of money to replace damaged parts. Photo: NVCC

Signs of an engine overheating error are usually the vehicle vibrating and making more noise than usual, or feeling sluggish when accelerating. If the owner continues to try to move the vehicle, it will be very harmful to the engine, possibly leading to engine seizure and blown gaskets, or worse, a bent connecting rod.

In fact, many drivers do not know that an overheating engine is one of the reasons why the car's air conditioner is no longer cool, but often think it is due to a problem with the air conditioning system.

If the fault is due to a problem with the air conditioning system, it is often related to the compressor. Some factors that cause the compressor to fail include poor quality gas charging, dirty air conditioner condenser, broken cooling fan, lack of lubricating oil, damaged ball bearing next to the air conditioner spark plug or damaged air conditioner cold compressor bearing.

But the problem often comes from the car's air conditioning compressor not being regularly maintained. According to engineer Le Van Tach, errors related to the air conditioning system will have less expensive repair costs.

Be proactive in checking your vehicle more often during hot weather.

During the hot summer, car users need to pay more attention to the cooling systems by cleaning the cooling water pipes, radiator fans, and radiators.

In case you see that the engine coolant is depleted quickly after one refill, you need to go to a service workshop to fix this problem as soon as possible.

Even in an emergency, never use mineral water or tap water to replace specialized coolant. Car owners should use purified water to avoid scale buildup and corrosion of parts in the cooling system.

"Regular and proper maintenance of the car's cooling system will not only help the car run smoothly, but also help the people in the car always have a cool, comfortable atmosphere on hot days. More importantly, you will save both time and money," engineer Tach shared.

Ngo Minh