Tips to keep your vehicle cooler during the warmer months

These tips can help keep your car cooler during the blistering summer heat.

We are starting to head into the hottest times of the year; it cannot only take a toll on our bodies but on our vehicles as well.

I love the warm weather, don't get me wrong. I love being out in the pool, at a beach side or floating the river and fishing is just a few things I love to do to cool off. I can be out on the boat fishing and swimming on the river all summer long with my family and not complain, but for some the heat can be unpleasant and just getting into a hot baking car can just feel like you are dying of a heat stroke. So, if you want to keep your yourself and your vehicle cooler in the heat, then check out some of these useful tips to help with just that.

Let's dive right into some of these great tips to keep you and your vehicle cooler this summer.

• Park in your garage, car port or under shade when you are home. By parking your vehicle in your garage or under shade when you are home will block the sun from directly hitting your vehicle, turning it into an oven.

Keeping your car in a garage or under shade and away from the sun can prevent your tires from being damaged as well. Long term sun exposer to your tires can create what is called "ozone cracks" on the sidewalls and treads that can lead to traumatic experiences like have a blowout going 60-80 MPH on the highway.

• Use a sunshade or window visor. A sunshade or window visor is the most used and useful method of keeping your vehicle cool all year. There have been tests done that have proven you can decrease the temperature of your dashboard by 35% after 45 minutes when using a sun visor in your front windshield.

Not using a sun visor of some sort can also lead to dashboard damage such as cracking and fading in excessive heat.

• Cover your steering wheel with a cloth. Using a sun visor alone may not help keep your car's steering wheel cool as the placement of the sun can move hitting your steering wheel from the sides of your vehicle. It is a good idea to place some sort of cloth or towel over your steering wheel to deflect direct contact heat contact from the sun.

• Get some window tinting for your car. You should get some window tinting for your car, but not enough to get your pulled over of course. Police need to still be able to see inside your vehicle to see who is driving it.

You can block out roughly 80% of the suns visible light coming through your vehicle's windows and up to 99% of the sun's harmful ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancers. By adding this simple feature to your car, you can expect to get in a much cooler vehicle compared to a non-tinted vehicle.

Windows that are not tinted can let in an average of 90% of the sun's rays and sunlight in your vehicle causing it to warm up like an oven from within.

• Park in a shady area. As previously mentioned in tip one, it is a good idea to park your car under shade during the hot summer heat as it can keep the sun from beaming down on to your car, cooking it like an egg on a frying pan.

• Park in a parking garage when at work or out and about. As mentioned in tip one, by keeping your car parked in a garage it will keep the sun from directly hitting your vehicle. I would rather walk into my mid-warm car that has been parked in a parking garage than to get in my car that has been sitting out under the sun all day. What about you?

• Keep windows slightly cracked. We all don't want to leave our windows open for the simple fact of window shoppers and car thefts and just isn't a good idea overall, but by keeping your window cracked just a hair will create a ventilation system within the cabin of the vehicle and will help keep your vehicle cooler overall.

• Keep items and object out of direct sun contact. It is not a good idea to have any object just freely sitting around in your vehicle, not even a quarter in the cup holder is safe, I say this because when you get in a wreck, your objects in your vehicle's cabin can hurt or even kill you if it makes contact with you.

Keeping objects like CD's and other personal items out of direct sunlight can prevent your property from melting and getting damaged from the suns raze.

Don't see a tip that works for you that you want to share with other fellow Gear Heads? Type it in a comment below.