one, two, three, four!
Rev up your engines!
It's time for the Scotty Kilmer Channel
today I'm going to show you what to do when your car's heater stops working, and yes,
it's snowing in Houston, it does that once every 10 or 20 years, but this video
is more for you northern people, now let's say you're driving down the road
and you turn on your heater, and nothing happens what do you do, well a common fix
at least in the short run, is this, the fan is usually behind the glove box, and if
you give it a few whacks, and then it starts blowing, that means your blower
motor is wearing out and it needs replacing, now here's an old broken blower
motor, what happens is, inside there are brushes, and as they wear out they
won't make a contact, and when you whack it, that gives them a jolt and they'll
often start spinning again, now in some cars they're pretty easy to change, they
got three bolts holding it in and they pop out, some of them they're really hard, but hey,
I grew up in Niagara Falls when I was a kid, a lot of guys, they just kicked the
glove box every once in a while, and then go the whole winter still having heat
whenever they kicked it, now if kicking doesn't work, check the fuse box,
maybe the blower motor is blown, or if it's got a blower motor relay, you
can whack the relay, and then if it starts to blow, you know you need a new
relay, and they just plug in and out, now in many modern cars, the heating system
is computer-controlled, like in this Lexus, but there's things you can do if they
break too, because what do you do with a computer at home when it doesn't work,
you turn it off, then you turn it back on, so in this case, you can turn the system
off, and turn the car off, then wait a minute or so, start the car up again, and
turn the system on automatic, and if that doesn't work, there's another trick, you
can put the sensors all the way down, till it gets too cold, then push it again
so it goes all the way to hot,
often that'll reset the system, then the heat works, I've got customers of these
fancy cars and over the years they say, yeah every once in a while they get
squirrely and I just put it on cold and then turn it back up to hot, and
somehow, something inside clicks that starts blowing hot air again, now the
next thing to check is your temperature gauge, if you've been driving a while and
the temperature gauge stays really low like this and doesn't go back to normal,
your thermostats probably stock open, now here's how thermostats work, when your
engine is cold, the thermostat stays shut, so water doesn't go through the radiator
and cool the engine, but if it sticks wide open, and water flows all the time in the
winter, your engine won't get hot enough to put out any eat, now in a lot of cars the
thermostats are easy to get to, there's this big hose, then there's two bolts here, it
unbolts and the new thermostat goes inside, but if you want instant heat, because you're
stuck in the middle of nowhere and you want to get warm now, you get a piece of
cardboard, and you can stick it in front of the radiator, but you want to do neater
job than that, you're going to need to cut the pieces off, so it fits over half of the
radiator, that blocks a lot of the air, and as long as you're careful and watch your
temperature gauge, and it doesn't get over halfway, you can drive that way, I
did that once when I was a kid, I was diving from Detroit all the way through
to Toronto, and I was the middle of the Queen E, got stuck in a snowstorm,
I had no heat, I stuck some cardboard in there, it got nice and warm, and I didn't
freeze anymore, and the last possible simple fix is this, check your radiator
fluid, because if your radiator fluid is low, here's why the heater won't work, the
heater core that's inside your car that gives you heat, is usually the highest
point, so if you're low on coolant in your radiator, the heater core will be
full of air and not hot coolant, and as strange as it sounds, the heater core
won't work with hot air, it only works with hot coolant, if it's got hot air you
won't get any real heat inside the car, it's got to be hot coolant going through
so it can go through all of the little crevices and put heat into your face
when the fan blows it through, so sometimes fixing your heater is as
simple as pouring coolant in your radiator,
so now you know some quick ways to get your heater working again in a pinch when it
stops working this winter, and remember if you have any car questions just visit
the Scotty Kilmer channel and I'll answer them as soon as I get back from
this glacier!