Have you recently decided to spend holidays together as a family by exploring this vast land in a mobile caravan, instead of sitting in a nondescript resort? If so, you may be the proud owner of a new van and may be looking forward to many exciting adventures together this year. While you may have taken into account the towing capacity of your car or truck and be perfectly happy that everything is configured correctly, you may have overlooked one important thing. How will this extra weight affect the transmission and what do you need to add to your vehicle if you are to ensure good performance?
The Risk of Towing
The typical car or truck that you're using to tow your new caravan is not inherently designed to pull heavy weights for long distances on a regular basis. Some components may therefore come under too much pressure and may be liable to fail through overuse. In particular, the transmission may overheat and damage may be caused to the internal components, leading to failure. This is why it's a good idea to consider fitting a transmission cooler in your case.
How Does This Work?
Transmission coolers come in three different configurations, but they are all essentially miniature radiators that help to cool the transmission fluid. This unit will sit next to the main radiator at the front of the vehicle and will take advantage of the cooling effect of air as the vehicle goes down the road. The miniature radiator is plumbed in to the transmission system using one pipe to send heated fluid and another to return the tempered liquid.
What Type of Cooler Do You Need?
The best type of transmission cooler is probably the "stacked plate" version. It looks like a conventional radiator, but it is fitted with larger turbulators that ensure there is a higher air flow across its surface. The fluid is forced through the plates efficiently, meaning that more fluid can be cooled in a shorter amount of time. While these may be a little more expensive than the other alternatives, they are far more efficient.
What Size?
You may wonder what size of transmission cooler you should fit to your vehicle and this is typically determined by the GVW, or gross vehicle weight. This figure is calculated by adding the weight of the vehicle, passengers, cargo and any other accessories and you can refer to charts provided by the manufacturer to choose the right one. As a general rule of thumb, however, it's never a bad idea to fit the largest cooler that you can within the available space, to get the best cooling action.
Taking Prompt Action
Take your vehicle into your auto repair shop as soon as possible to get a transmission cooler fitted and before you embark on any lengthy journeys with that new caravan.
For more information, contact a local mechanic who can accomplish transmission repair.
Share12 March 2018
My name is Donna, and I love my toys! I have an ATV, a caravan, a boat and a range of other "toys". I find that there is a lot of information online about auto service but not that much about servicing fun types of vehicles. Inspired by the phrase "be the change you want to see in the world", I decided to start a blog full of information that is usually hard to find online. I will write about servicing toys, vintage cars, sports cars and a range of other topics. I hope that you like these posts and that you learn from them. Thanks for reading and enjoy your toys.