Hot Climates Engine Care
By Pierre Maertin
Summer is here, and temper-atures rise as a matter of seasons, this ambient increase poses additional challenges to your car if you live in any one of several hot climate regions. Even if we ignore current climatic fluctuations due to greenhouse gases or planetary orbital variations, if we are considering peak summer conditions for the 1990s and earlier, this care alert would still be advisable for optimal longevity of your car.
It’s not just Southern California car owners that are affected. From those who live in far off Indonesia and Thailand to countries bordering the Sahara Desert and the Persian Gulf, all of these regional climates create horrendous operating conditions for car owners. But don’t leave out the Mojave Desert, Death Valley, New Mexico and other parts of the United States.
When temperatures increase dramatically and for sustained periods of time, metallic solid objects expand due to thermal energies absorbed by these materials. Physical dimensions become distorted due to heat, and pre-established tolerances between car parts are tested. Most importantly for your engine, operating tolerances between piston and engine block cavities, cylinder heads, seals, rings, springs, coils and packing glands are all affected.
Automotive manufacturers naturally allow for these extreme conditions – some – and not for sustained periods – no manufacturer will design a car that lasts forever. External exposure in your
driveway, summer
after summer, or year
after year, will compound the stresses from the engine combustion temperatures that are slowly disintegrating and creeping the atomic structure of your components. Creep and material fatigue are loosely referred to as “wear and tear” by the every-day mechanic and car owner.
Other factors include impact stresses, vibrational stresses from friction, asymmetrical high speed rotational imbalances (worn out bearings or misalignment) all contribute to slowly peeling off tiny layers of metal inside your engine and its components. If the damage is severe you can observe with the naked eye metal burrs and shavings in the oil pan when draining the engine oil.
With unavoidable damage to the tolerances of fast-moving part, primarily friction and thermal stresses (also dominant in extreme cold conditions), cracks in the walls of the engine, the piston head and the seals will inevitably lead to leakage of engine oil into the combustion chamber of each piston.
Your engine will start to leak engine lubricant into the firing chamber, will combust along with the fuel air mixture and will be discharged from your exhaust manifold into the car’s tail pipe, of course adding to the pollutants already present in urban settings or even in rural settings.
The oil burn will be highly discrete at first and as the car gets older and subject to more abuse, the engine oil loss will become more apparent between oil and filter changes, mandated either by
the dealership or the
car manufacturer in
the user manual –
typically around 3,000 miles. When summer heat settles in, and especially in hot desert climates, it is imperative for car owners to check the oil level on their engine oil between the intervals for oil and filter changes.
The maintenance shop sticker on your windshield may say that the oil and filter change are not due for a couple of months yet but your engine oil level may be already low from oil burn and you may need to supplement the engine oil with new motor oil purchased from car parts stores, your local gas station or your car supplies dealer.
Your Low Engine Oil Indicator in the dashboard may not come on, but if you are low on motor oil in the engine case, your components and engine are suffering.
It’s a small detail that can be easily overlooked by car owners yet it can be very costly in premature wear and tear and engine repairs down the line.
Keep in mind small cars have smaller engines designed to rev as hard as the bigger engine cars. Your inline four cylinder or three cylinder engine will hit the redline at around 6,500 to 7,000 RPMs (revolutions per minute) as opposed to big V-8 engines that max out at around 6,500 RPMs and push out higher torque with notably stronger accelerations. Smaller cars are prone to higher stresses due to their smaller engines and, unfortunately, higher probability of oil burnouts.
It’s easy to check your engine oil levels. Just pop open the engine hood, and look for a hook handle typically located in the space between the engine block and the radiator. Grab the hook and pull out the dipstick slowly, wipe it clean with rag, slide it back in its tube, wait a moment and then pull it out again and look at the oil level next to the distinctive notches on the oil stick. It’s a little bit like looking at a thermometer. Also, it’s best to make sure your car is level and not parked on an incline (grade) when checking your motor oil level.
The oil dipstick has very obvious markings/notches at the bottom, sometimes two bars, the top notch is for maximum level and the bottom is for minimum level.
It is never a good idea to run your engine with your oil level below the bottom notch, and most likely your dashboard light will go off warning you of low engine oil. It is also not a good idea to run your engine with your oil level between both top and bottom notches, although in the short run the damage will not be acute. Your optimal performance is for the engine oil to be near or at the top notch but not to overfill or cross the top notch.
In very hot climates, all of these issues are exacerbated for your car’s engine, so it is best to periodically use your dipstick to check up on your motor oil levels and not act in reliance on the dashboard warning light and just the oil and filter change sticker’s mileage and date.
Are additives and special lubricants better for your engine performance? More to follow in our upcoming article.
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