Looking after your battery during the cold weather could be the difference between being able to start your engine or having to call out your breakdown service company. There are many ways that we can help preserve the life of our car batteries and allow for successful engine starts every time we need our cars during the winter months.
Why Do We Need To Look After Our Car Batteries?
When the cold weather hits, your battery must work harder in order to crank the engine. Each battery has a CCA rating which is used to define the battery's ability to start during cold temperatures. You will usually find this information on the label of the battery installed in your car.
If your battery has deteriorated, through a lack of charge or other factors that affect the performance of the battery, this CCA rating may have now reduced and be unrecoverable to its original levels. Your car will have a required CCA rating for its battery which provides the necessary CCA's to start your vehicle at temperatures around 0 degrees.
What Happens If We Do Not Look After Our Car Battery?
If we do not look after our car battery, then the most common issue will be that our engine will not start, or will certainly struggle to start. If it takes more than one try to start your engine, this may be a sign of your battery having insufficient charge or having a poor state of health. In this case, we would recommend to take your vehicle on a medium length drive to try and recharge the battery. If you are still having problems, we would recommend conducting a battery test, something which most garages will carry out free of charge.
10 Tips For Looking After Car Batteries During Winter
1) Check You Have The Right Specification Battery For Your Vehicle
We recommend that you check the battery requirements of your vehicle. Batteries are available in different sizes and specifications. You should check whether you need and AGM or EFB battery, these are mostly used in vehicles that have start/stop functionality. Make sure the battery matches the available space within the battery tray.
2) Free Health Checks
Many garages and battery stores like ourselves will offer a free battery health check will you wait. Some garages will include this alongside other winter checks such as anti-freeze and tyre checks. They ill be able to ascertain whether your battery is both charged and healthy.
A battery can be fully charged but be unhealthy and no longer have the required CCA rating for your vehicle. In this case, a new battery would be suggested by the testing company.
If your battery is healthy, but simply requires a charge, a long journey could allow the alternator to recharge the battery. It may be best though to place the battery on charge depending on the state of charge.
3) Check Your Breakdown Cover
If you haven't already, make sure you have breakdown cover. For those just in case moments where you are out and about, and your engine fails to start. It could be your first trip following a period of snow and your battery had enough power to get you to the local shop, but the journey time didn't recharge the battery enough.
One thing to check with breakdown cover is making sure that you have home start cover. Many breakdown policies will only cover you if you are are over 1 mile away from home. If this was the case, you may need to call a local recovery company, which would be at an additional cost.
4) Drive Your Car Regularly
One of the best ways to help preserve the life of your battery, particularly during the winter months is to make regular journeys. These journeys need to be of a significant length in terms of duration(20-30 mins) so that the alternator will kick in to recharge the battery during your journey. It will replenish the charge that it took to start the engine.
Too many short journeys could seriously impact your car's ability to start, we would recommend that you limit the number of shorter journeys during the winter months.
5) Keep Your Car Covered
Keeping your car in a garage overnight is one of the best ways to limit the impact of the cold weather on your battery. If you do not have access to a garage, then a car cover would minimise the impact that the cold weather has on your car, but could still cause your car to fail during the harshest of weathers.
6) Strategically Park Your Car
If you do not have a garage, or a car cover, there are a few extra things we can suggest that will help to minimise the impact of the weather on your battery. During daylight hours, make sure that your car is parked in direct sunlight, this will help to increase the temperature of the car and the battery. We do recommend though, that you avoid open and exposed parking areas where wind chill could be a factor.
7) Reduce The Load On Your Battery
You can reduce the load on your battery when it starts by turning off things like radios and heated seats and not connecting items such as mobile phone chargers and satellite navigation systems. This delay will allow you battery to focus on the starting of your engine and not be drained by other electric applications.
You can turn them on once the engine has been on for a constant 5-10 minutes of driving.
8) Make Sure Electric Systems Are Switched Off
Upon exiting your vehicle, make sure that you have switched of all your electric devices and systems. Pay particular attention to interior and exterior lights, as these will stay on when you are away from your vehicle depending on its age. The drainage on your battery caused by the electric systems not being turned off could result in complete discharge, meaning that when you come to start it next time, you are unable to.
9) Carry Jump Leads
Most people carry jumper cables or jump leads in their boot for those just in case moments, and it can prove to be a shrewd investment. Always make sure though that then you are using another vehicle to charge yours that it is of a higher power than your battery, otherwise it could cause damage to both batteries.
10) Invest In A Battery Charger
Battery chargers are a great investment if you have a garage or driveway where you can safely and easily attach one to you battery. Trickle chargers work by sending a low voltage to the battery and tops it up at the same rate as self-discharge. This means that devices can be left for long periods of time, they are often used by classic car enthusiasts, or motorcycle users.
We hope that these tips help you to stay on the road this winter, but in the unfortunate event that your battery does fail, Car Battery Market has the right battery for your vehicle.
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