Shop Discount Heater Cores

The heater core is a component of a vehicle’s cooling system that is used to help transfer the heat generated by the operation of the engine into the passenger compartment through the vehicle’s environmental control system. Since the primary product of an internal combustion engine is waste heat, the heater core doesn’t actually have to generate any heat itself. Instead, what it does is take the hot coolant which is coming out of the motor and run it through a series of curved pipes that are in turn surrounded by thin metal fins. If this sounds a lot like the car’s radiator, that is because they operate on exactly the same principal: the motion of the hot coolant through the pipes allows the fins to exchange heat with the air. This warm air is then blown in to the vehicle’s passenger compartment, while the slightly cooler antifreeze continues on along its path to the radiator. The heater core is obviously not always filled with coolant – the flow of antifreeze and water moving through the component is controlled by a valve or a door which opens and closes depending on the amount of heat requested by the driver. In a pinch, the heater core can be used as a ‘second radiator’, by turning heater controls to maximum warmth and bleeding off some engine heat through the heating ducts. Sometimes this can cool down an overheating motor enough to get it safely home or the garage – whichever happens to be closer.

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