Trifflin' HOSE

I drive a 12 year old car with 200,000 miles. Come to think of it, I have never owned a car that was built after 1998. My first car was 16 years old when it came into my possession. It was actually the car that I came home from the hospital in after being born. Growing up, I had friends whose parents got new cars every 3-5 years. My parents, on the other hand, kept their cars for 10-15 years before replacing them. As a child, it was a bit difficult to understand the value in taking care of something and making it last, but I suppose that I have grown a bit wiser of the years and now I can appreciate my parents' frugality. I can't exactly claim to be a saint, because over the years I have spent a good deal of money tinkering with my cars as a hobby and for recreation, however, I think that I am much richer for the experience. I have learned a great deal about cars and how to repair them when they break. This is something I was reminded of last Friday evening.

Brad and I were on our way into DC to meet up with Jess for a show at the 930 Club. One of my all time favorite bands, Nada Surf, was playing. For those of you in the area, you'll remember that it was an absolutely gorgeous day - probably the first day that it really started to feel like spring had arrived. Anyway, Brad and I were sitting in stop-and-go traffic on New York Ave when he noticed that my water temperature gauge was starting to climb. Sure enough, that little red needle was rapidly ascending right before our eyes.

This is a good time for a brief lesson in engine mechanics. A car's engine is essentially a big air pump. The engine breathes air IN and breathes exhaust gasses OUT. Thousands of tiny explosions happen every minute which drive a rotating assembly. The spinning engine spins your wheels. That's the short of it. Well, you can imagine that the engine gets hot - both from the combustion of fuel and also the hundreds of moving metal parts creating friction. To keep things under control, most cars have a water-based cooling system which circulates water through the engine, absorbing heat from the metal. Generally, the cooling system consists of a pump to move the water, various channels and hoses for the water to travel through, a thermostat to regulate the movement of the water and finally a radiator. The radiator cools the water back down after it has moved through the engine. It is mounted on the front of the car so that air will pass through it while you're driving. There is also a fan which moves air across the radiator during the times when you are not moving, such as when you're sitting in traffic. The water in an engine is commonly mixed with other chemicals to aid in the heat transfer and also keep it from freezing in the winter. This is why you will hear it called "coolant" and also "anti-freeze." It's all the same shit - water/coolant/anti-freeze. Just plain water will work, but just not as effectively and not in the winter. Furthermore, a car's heating system is also tied into the cooling system. When you turn on your heat, the heat is actually coming from the hot water in your cooling system.

Anyway, let's continue.

So, my water temperature was climbing to dangerous levels very quickly and I was stuck in city traffic with no place to pull over. Brad reacted quickly and pulled my climate control all the way to the hot side and switched the fan onto full. We were blasted with scorching hot hair through the vents and immediately put the windows down and opened the sunroof. The reason for turning on the heat is that the car's heating system contains what is essentially a radiator, called the heater core. When you turn on the heat, some of the engine's water is diverted into the heater core which heats the air that blows out of your vents. This will help to temporarily cool down the water, especially when you are stuck at a stand still. In this case, turning the heat on did not do much to keep the temp from climbing and I knew I would need to pull over and shut the engine off to avoid completely FITGing myself. Traffic started to move again and as soon as I revved the engine, I noticed the needle begin to go back down. We were barely doing 5mph so I knew that the decrease in temperature wasn't a result of us moving. Traffic stopped again and I revved the engine up to about 3000 rpm with the car in neutral - sure enough, the temperature came down very quickly. If I let off the pedal, the temp would shoot right back up. This was good and bad. Good because I could keep the car from overheating, but bad because this indicated that I was low on water/coolant. The way I knew this was because at idle the engine is only turning at around 800rpm which does not allow the water pump to circulate the coolant very much. When I increased the engine to 3000rpm, the temperature went down because the coolant was being circulated more rapidly. There simply was not enough water in the system to keep the engine cool at idle. This indicated that I had a leak somewhere.

I was able to nurse the car to the concert and then back home again afterwards. Saturday morning, I woke up and went out to inspect the car for a leak. Sure enough, there was a little damp spot underneath one of the smaller water hoses. I took a quick trip down the road to the auto parts store and bought some replacement hose for $4. Twenty minutes later, I had replaced the old hose which had basically blown out (see photo) and then added about half a gallon (yikes) of fresh coolant. NBD.


Here is the bad hose. You'll notice that at the kink, the hose is all fat and blown out. This is where a small leak had formed and almost resulted in the total destruction of my engine :)