The role of the intercooler in vehicles makes your life easier; cooling inter air for better combustion with an air of higher density. This in turn literally upgrades your vehicle into a whole new one within a matter of installation.

But just as any auto performance parts, intercoolers wear off. As of now, your intercooler could be also not doing the best. The question is that is it worth it to run with a worn-out and malfunctioning intercooler?

The short answer is a big no; as for the long answer, let us look at what happens when you drive with a broken intercooler system.

Decreased mileage as a whole

Combustion of colder air is what increases the efficiency of the engine as a whole. But when your intercooler is damaged or malfunctioned, then it cannot do its designated function. When that doesn’t happen air-fuel ratio of the engine won’t be optimal forcing the engine to use up more fuel than it’s actually required for the milage efficiency had the intercooler been working in the right way.

Long term damage to the interconnected parts

The performance intercoolers are not a separate unit that runs independently; it’s part of the system. So, when it’s acting to improve the engine as a whole, it helps the engine to do better. But when it doesn’t, it’s going to infect the vehicle as a whole.

From one side, the inlet air will have a higher temperature, which eventually creates black smoke, running your exhaust system, and this list of connections goes on – the bottom line, long term damages to the interconnected parts of the vehicle.

Lowered horsepower

Just as much as the mileage, the power of the vehicle is definitely going to drop down as you’re driving with an intercooler. Since the intercooler is more or less a permanent part of most modern vehicles and running without it only decreases the performance of the vehicle, we do not recommend any other solution than replacing it.

Poor performance of your AC

This goes without saying – in fact, unexpected performance drop of a vehicle’s air conditioner when there are other signs of poorly functioning intercooler screams out that your intercooler badly needs replacing.

So, what should you do?

All you need to do is reach out to an online performance shop, for the lowest price with the same quality that you find in the physical market and get a reliable mechanic to do the installation. It might be tempting to do it on your own, but this is a functional component; it needs to be perfectly integrated into the system, and you might not be able to do that. So, why take the risk when you know you could find a very reliable service station?

The takeaway

Even if your car doesn’t come with an intercooler, modding it with one is not a bad idea at all, as long as you’re preserving the brand quality. But you don’t have to worry about it when it comes to most modern vehicles, especially the ones with turbo.