Every living being needs to breathe and eat to live. While human beings do so by breathing oxygen and food, automobiles do so by feeding on energy. A car needs two different kinds of energy sources to keep itself going. These energy sources come from the battery and car engine when they both release electricity and burn fuel respectively. Both energy sources work together to get a car running. The Electricity produced by a car is needed to kickstart a car engine which then burns the fuel to move the car.
So, even if one of the energy sources stops functioning, a car becomes as good as a statue. This is something that most of the people know, yet only some take measures to keep them going. Part of this is due to the reason that most of the car owners are unaware of basic checkups that they regularly need to do to keep the car going smoothly. Most of the car issues are generally addressed when one or another major part of starts acting weirdly or stops functioning.
Apart from this, most car battery problems are not visible directly; so, it becomes difficult for the car owners to check for any kind of defects. To make this process easier, here is a detailed guide on how to inspect and detect faulty car batteries.
Tips to identify dying car batteries
1. Reading alerts:
A car dashboard features a variety of alerts that help show different kind of problems. Alerts lights like low battery level, change engine oil, etc. reside along with the speedometer on a car dashboard. If the alternator is producing less voltage than the defined standards, a yellow-colored low battery light turns on. A weak battery is further signaled by signs like dimming lights on a frequent basis.
Once such things are noticed, the car should be immediately brought to the notice of a service provider. Changing car battery at the right time will ensure that future issues like slow car startups are prevented.
2. Inspection:
There are certainly other ways in which a weak car battery can be easily determined. They are as follows:
- Take note of how lights behave on powering up the car engine. If the dashboard even tends to flicker the alert lights during this, it’s about time to get the car battery checked.
- Once the engine is powered, try kicking it off by revving it in the neutral gear and keeping the headlights at the same time. If lights seem to boost their brightness with every revving push, it about time to go for changing the car battery.
- Turn on the car headlights and then try turning on the car. If the lights tend to constantly dim and boost on ignition; it’s a clear indicator for visiting a car service provider.
3. Characteristic analysis:
Recent automobiles like cars and trucks come equipped with small scale computers, sensors, and equipments that constantly keep a track of how a vehicle performs. While these devices generally have a very good reputation due to the advantages they bring; sometimes they can actually draw more power from the batteries than they are usually expected.
This is much more evident in the cases of old vehicles having aged batteries. Moreover, these computers are also sometimes notoriously known to draw unnecessary power from the battery even when the car is not running. To avoid this issue, one must at least take the car on one short trip once every week to ensure that the accessory computers don’t end up sipping an excessive amount of power. If this measure doesn’t stop weakening the battery, one must visit a car servicing shop on an urgent basis.
4. Driving patterns:
Car batteries tend to release power by performing chemical reactions. Such reactions are vital and provide an immense amount of power needed to start the car engine. Pushing the power is a heavy process that often puts a lot of strain on the car batteries. While car batteries are designed to sustain themselves for longer periods of time, these strains can easily degrade the car battery.
Such strains tend to happen on a frequent basis when a car is often driven for shorter distances like a visit to the nearest shopping malls, park drives, and so on. If a car was often driven to such small distances on a frequent basis, chances are that the car battery might be on the verge of giving up with some obvious signs here and there on an occasional basis.
5. The Game of temperatures:
It’s a known fact that car batteries don’t like the idea of living in extreme temperatures. This holds true for both cold as well as hot weather. Car batteries tend to act up when they are constantly exposed to extreme cold and hot weather by not delivering the proper amount of power required to kickstart the car engine.
While a common fix like revving a car for some more couple of minutes might do the trick of getting the car back on track, it would not serve as a permanent fix. The most ideal solution, in this case, would be to take the car for servicing to resolve potential issues.
6. Regular car servicing:
This goes without saying but a car is as good as it’s taken care of. Activities like periodic checkups and regular car servicing from authorized car service providers ensure that a car not only stays free of problems but keeps performing as it is intended to be. Such inspections drastically reduce the possibility of future breakdowns and boost the lifespan of a car battery in some cases.
This is because such checkups give car owners an opportunity to replace the faulty components, giving that much-needed breathing space for the car battery to retain its health. A service from an authorized service center will assure that the car is assessed by a professional and find out the exact reason for a dying battery.
These are some of the common tips to identify dying car batteries that can assist anyone in the urgent need of checking the car batteries and get them addressed quickly so that they are able to use the car at the times right when they need them the most.