Pop quiz: What is a cabin air filter?

A. A filter for your St. Peter house?
B. A fresh, piney scent?
C. A filter for the passenger compartment of your car?

Clever you, it’s C.

A cabin air filter cleans the outside air before it comes into the passenger compartment of your vehicle. It filters out common MN air particles like dust, pollen, spores, bacteria, pollutants, exhaust gas, odors and even sparrows.

These high tech filters can block particles larger than 3 microns. By contrast, a grain of sand is about 200 microns.

Not all St. Peter vehicles have cabin air filters. They are fairly new on the scene in MN. Last check, about 40 percent of new vehicles sold in St. Peter come with cabin air filters, but the number is growing every year.

Cabin air filters make driving a lot more pleasant for people in St. Peter. Your vehicle can be a haven during our MN allergy season with very little dust and pollen getting into the cabin. Of course, like all filters, the cabin air filter eventually gets clogged. When this happens, your heating and air conditioning flow can become restricted. The filter can even get kind of smelly.

Check your owner’s manual for replacement guidelines. If your vehicle owner’s manual doesn’t mention your cabin air filter, ask your friendly and knowledgeable service advisor at Autotronics of St. Peter for a recommendation. It’s usually every year or 12,000 miles /19,000 kilometers. Change it sooner if you drive in dusty conditions around the St. Peter area, or if you start to notice a funky smell coming from your vents.

The team at Autotronics of St. Peter urges St. Peter drivers to keep their cabin air filter cleans. It may not help with your brother-in-law in the backseat, but it will make your driving experience around St. Peter more enjoyable.

Come by and we’ll take a look at your cabin air filter for you.

Autotronics of St. Peter
111 Jefferson Avenue
St. Peter, MN 56082
507.934.9290
http://autotronicsstpeter.com

Today we want to talk about a system in our vehicles – the cooling system. It’s one of those things that St. Peter auto owners don’t give much thought to until it fails and then they’re stranded by the side of a road in MN.

Cooling systems fail more often than any other mechanical system – usually because of neglect. Don’t you hate it when something breaks and you could have done something to prevent it?

The good news is that if St. Peter drivers take care of their cooling systems, they can keep working for the life of their car.

Here at Autotronics of St. Peter in St. Peter, we emphasize preventive maintenance services like replacing your coolant according to the factory schedule. But the various parts that make up the cooling system need attention too. The major components of the cooling system are the water pump, freeze plugs, the thermostat, radiator, cooling fans, the heater core, the pressure cap, the overflow tank and the hoses.

It sounds complicated, but we St. Peter residents don’t have to be experts – we can leave that to our friendly and knowledgeable service advisor at Autotronics of St. Peter. But, having an overview will help us remember how to take care of your car’s cooling system.

Most St. Peter folks would be surprised to know that burning fuel in your engine produces up to 4,500 degrees F/2,500 degrees C of heat. And all that heat has to be dealt with. If the heat can’t be drawn off the engine, the pistons will literally weld themselves to the inside of the cylinders – then you just have to throw the engine away and get a new one. That would cost thousands of dollars.

Now the water pump is what forces the coolant through passages in the vehicle engine to absorb heat. The pump is driven by a belt that needs replacement from time to time. And the water pump will eventually wear out and need to be replaced. Spending some cash on replacing the belts and water pump is much less than the cost of repairing the extremely massive damage that can be done when an engine seizes.

There’s another little known but important part of the coolant system that protects the engine. It’s called a freeze plug. If you remember from high school chemistry, water expands when it freezes. In very cold areas, the coolant can actually freeze when the vehicle is left sitting.

It is hard to believe, but the expanding frozen coolant is enough to actually crack the engine block. The freeze plugs fit into the engine block. They fit tight enough to withstand the pressure of a running engine, but can expand or pop out if the coolant freezes. These little things save a lot of engine blocks.

The team at Autotronics of St. Peter can check your cooling system and make any necessary adjustments or repairs. Give us a call.

Autotronics of St. Peter
111 Jefferson Avenue
St. Peter, MN 56082
507.934.9290
http://autotronicsstpeter.com