WHY DO BATTERIES FAIL?
The Car Care Council reports that an average of one out of four vehicles gets a new battery every year. Preemptively replacing a battery prevents the costs of road-side assistance or just simple inconvenience of a car that won’t start when you need to be somewhere.
Car-Battery trouble can be traced back to weather. Hot weather affects the actual structure of the battery and its internal fluids. In warmer months of the year, high heat causes the battery fluid to evaporate and components in the charging system to malfunction. When a battery is low on battery fluid or charging at too high of a rate, the internal make-up of the battery experiences some rapid wear and tear. Slowly but surely, batteries in hot weather will go out like a light.
Those calls to AAA during the winter season for a car that won’t turn over due to a dead battery are also well-known. The cold works to slow down electro-chemical reactions, meaning the battery cannot get enough power to turn back on each time the car is run, turned off, and re-started. The cold also thickens the engine’s oil, throwing another road-block to an easy start-up of the engine in the way. This is not precisely a death in battery, but rather difficulty in turning the engine over into life, in the first place.
The charging system for the battery is also to be checked and serviced. As long as the battery can maintain enough voltage to turn-over, typically the winter problem, the charging system will kick in to deliver power to the engine. The alternator, alternator drive belt, and voltage regulator are the key parts in this system. Keeping them in tip-top shape will make sure the battery stays charged and re-charged for all seasons.
HOW CAN THIS BE PREVENTED?
For the entire year in both the cold and the heat, here are some tips to make sure your battery and its charging system have a long, happy life:
- check the electrical system’s charging rate for overcharging or undercharging, both are problematic
- the fluid in some batteries may need to be frequently topped off, especially in hot weather, so regular checks of levels is necessary, adding distilled water
- when replacing a battery, do so with a model that is preferably higher and no lower a rating than the one formerly in place
- keeping a battery clean prevents dirt from stealing energy from the battery and corrosive elements from blocking up the flow of electric currents
Call us today at 7 to 7 Auto Services to have your battery or charging system serviced. Our trained technicians will diagnosis your problem and find the right solution the first time, the right time.
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