Inland, and it matters
Coastal Florida gets a sea breeze most afternoons that takes the edge off. Orlando is far enough inland to lose it, which makes it consistently hotter than the coastal cities at the same latitude.
For a cooling system that is the difference between coping and not. Every system is sized against a worst case the manufacturer tested, and inland Florida in August with the air conditioning at full load is that worst case as an ordinary afternoon.
A fan that engages a few degrees late, a thermostat that opens slowly, or a radiator with scaled tubes will never be noticed in a temperate climate and will put the temperature gauge up here in traffic.
Plastic is the specific failure mode: radiator end tanks, thermostat housings and coolant elbows go brittle with heat cycling and split all at once while hot rather than weeping a warning.
Toll roads and corridor crawl
The metro is built around a toll road network, and much of the commuting is sustained running on it. The theme park corridors are the opposite — long periods barely moving in heavy volume.
That is a mixed wear profile. The toll miles accumulate hours at load on wheel bearings, constant-velocity joints, tyres and the drivetrain. The corridor crawl consumes brake friction at full vehicle weight with no aerodynamic drag helping, and puts the cooling system in its worst condition.
The two noises worth recognising on a high-mileage car here: a hum that rises with road speed and ignores engine speed, which is a bearing; and a rhythmic click on full lock at low speed, which is an outer joint.
A used market full of high-hour cars
Orlando has one of the highest concentrations of rental and fleet vehicles in the country, and a great many of them enter the local used market.
They are not necessarily bad cars, but their profile is specific: high annual mileage, a lot of idling, heavy air conditioning use and many different drivers. The parts to look at are the ones that count hours rather than miles — the compressor, the alternator, the water pump and the cooling fan — and the ones that suffer from unfamiliar drivers, which is brakes and tyres.
Nothing under a Florida car rusts, so the underside will look excellent regardless. That is evidence of no road salt, not of an easy life.
Afternoon storms and standing water
Summer brings a thunderstorm most afternoons, and the water arrives faster than the drainage takes it.
Driving through standing water draws it past hot hub seals as the bearing cools, reaches connectors low on the vehicle, and if deep enough goes past the air filter — which ends an engine outright.
Florida inspects nothing, so none of this is ever found by anybody except the owner.
Checked