In certain situations, the cooler might have to be replaced, but it is hard to say exactly when. It is important to keep an eye out for any of the symptoms listed below. This doesn’t mean, however, that it will last that long in reality as there are a few things that can go wrong. How long does an oil cooler last?Īn oil cooler is meant to last for the entire life of a car. Since temperature is an important factor in the change in viscosity of oil, cooling becomes an essential process. So it becomes a balance you want it to be sticky enough to cling to the gears and moving parts, but free enough to flow through the system and keep it cool. Therefore, if too much heat is transferred to the oil, its viscosity decreases to a point where it would struggle to lubricate the required systems properly. So a thick, lumpy oil has a high viscosity and a smooth, thin oil flows more easily and therefore has a lower viscosity.Īutomotive oils are specially designed to sit within certain ranges of viscosity. Viscosity is a measure of how easily a fluid flows, and as oils lose and gain heat, their viscosities increase and decrease respectively. Before the oil enters the sump or oil reservoir after it has been around the system and will be sent around once more, it needs to be cooled down so that the oil doesn’t reach an unusable viscosity. Oil flows around the engine block to make sure moving parts are lubricated and can move freely and also to remove heat produced through friction. Why is it important to keep engine oil cool? The heat absorbed by the engine’s cooling system is then transferred to the air as it passes through the vehicle’s radiator, which is located in front of the engine behind the grille of the vehicle. The heat from the oil is transferred through the walls of the tubes to the surrounding coolant similar in many ways to the operation of an indoor air conditioning for residential homes. The oil then flows through the tubes of the cooler while the engine coolant flows around the tubes. In most cars, engine oil is fed to the oil coolers from an adapter that is located between the engine block and the engine oil filter. With oil coursing predominantly through the engine block, the steering system, and a turbocharger in turbocharged vehicles, oil can very quickly gain heat, especially when driving intensely. They look like small cross-flow heat exchanges and the oil cooler location can differ depending on which car you have, though they are all played to maximise the cooling efficiency. The oil cooler purpose is to allow the engine’s cooling system to remove excess heat from the oil. In essence, yes, it is a small radiator that does the same job as a normal radiator for oil. The first question that lots of people ask is ‘is an oil cooler a radiator?’. You could even think about upgrading your oil cooler! What is an oil cooler in an engine? Just like any other component, they wear out over time, so use our guide to find out what an oil cooler is and how to properly maintain it. Helping to keep the oil and your engine cool, this unit is a key part of the car’s cooling system and although most drivers will never have any interaction with their oil coolers, keeping them in working order will make sure they last longer. While oils are designed very well to do this, especially full-synthetic engine oils with additives, they can take all the help they can get, and this is where the car oil cooler comes in. The constant movement of the pistons and other moving parts which keep the engine going creates a lot of heat through friction and it is part of the job of engine oil to take away this heat. But regardless of the weather, engine oil gets very hot inside your engine. When it is the depths of winter, you’re struggling to shift ice off the windscreen, and your breath is misting up even inside the car, a cooler for your engine oil might be the last thing you think your car needs. Find out how an oil cooler stops this from happening. Since oil is the lifeblood of your car, you have to make sure that blood doesn’t boil.
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