Rev up your engines, today I'm going to give you
five ways you can make your car battery last as long as it possibly can,
Car batteries get more and more expensive these
days, sometimes the average battery will be 140 dollars, you want to make sure
your battery lasts as long as possible.
1) The first trick to making your battery lasts as long as possible is, use it
all the time, now I know that sounds counterintuitive but it's not, car batteries
aren't like cell phone batteries, you use your cell phone the battery drains,
eventually it runs out of electricity, but car batteries aren't that way, they
start your car up but once they start your car, then your alternator kicks in
and the alternator recharge the battery and runs the engine, car batteries are
made so that they discharge a little, start the car then recharge as the
alternator recharges them, if you just let a car battery sit you don't use it,
they actually go bad just sitting, now if you don't use your car much it's a
good idea to get one of these battery tender type things, what it does is, you
hook it up to the battery and it does a little trickle charge and then every
once in a while, it takes a little energy out of the battery so it's like
exercising the battery so it stays strong. Let's say you're not using your car
much, it's a good idea to use one of those or just take the battery out of the
car when you're not using it, if it's sitting for weeks or months at a time leave
it on one of those machines and then put it back in the car when you're going
to use it. If you don't use your car much, hey every once in a while it's a good
idea to put a little charge into the battery because it will get weak just
sitting there.
2) The next trick to making your battery lasts as
long as possible, is to keep the terminals clean and remove any corrosion and
nice and tight. because corrosion or loose terminals create more resistance and
the more resistance in an electrical circuit the harder the battery has to work
to send electricity to it, it will have a tendency of getting hot spots, that
will eventually wear the battery out faster, all you need is one of these
99-cent cleaners it's real good for cleaning them off, just scrape all the
corrosion off of them, then get some spray electrical cleaner, I'm using mass
airflow sensor cleaner it's the same thing it actually costs more, but I've got
cases of this stuff so I use that to clean off any electrical problems, and
then get rid of any residue that might be lying around, then once it dries get
some of this battery spray terminal protector and spray it on the terminals,
that seals the battery acid vapor from getting and eating it up, spray both of
them, that way the corrosion won't come back and you won't have any problems
with those areas getting too hot from a weak connection and then making the
battery work too hard and burn itself out early.
3) The next thing to ensure that your battery lasts
as long as it can is make sure you have the correct battery in your car in the
first place. Batteries have ratings on them, a lot of times you're actually
better putting a better battery in than the one that it came with, the main
purpose of the battery is to start the car, it needs a lot of power once it's started,
the alternator kicks in and charges everything up, so the main focus of the
battery is to actually start the car up, and I know a lot of you say, hey well
when they make the cars they put a small battery and isn't it the way it's
supposed to be? No that's just because it's cheaper to make a car that way, and
of course they weigh a little bit less the cheaper batteries and you got like
1/1000 of better gas mileage for the few pounds you save but it's mainly
because it's cheaper to make them that way.
4) Another
way to make your battery last as long as possible, is every once in a while
have your alternator checked, because the alternator works in tandem with the battery,
if one or the other is weak it can harm the other one, if you have a weak
alternator it's going to make the battery work harder and wear it out faster and
especially if you have an alternator, let's say the diodes are going bad in it
and it overcharges, it will actually burn out your battery by giving it too
much electricity and destroying it, an alternator is called an alternator
because it actually creates alternating electricity, then the diodes and the
internals of the alternator transform that into direct electricity, and when
things break sometimes the alternator will actually put out alternating electricity
of way too high voltage and that will destroy the battery, it doesn't take a
mechanic three minutes to check your alternator, you can even buy one of these Top
don checkers yourselves, they’re like 50 bucks or so and they do a pretty good
job of checking your battery and your alternator, you want to have them tested
every once in a while, because when they are going out it's better to change
them sooner than later.
5) The last trick to making your battery last as long as possible is to check the battery acid level that's inside the battery every once in a while, you just pop the top off and look inside if you can see the water level like in these it's perfectly fine, plates need to be covered with the battery acid if you see them that means it's low, just get some distilled water and pour it in until they're covered up again, now years ago they were pushing sealed batteries, where you couldn't add water, now it wasn't that the battery acid inside some of it didn't evaporate, it still had vents but those are made that it would evaporate much slower, still when it evaporated you couldn't add anymore and you had to buy a new battery, so the best batteries for a long life are really the ones where you can take the top off and check them, unless you're someone who never checks anything, and if you or your wife never checks in anything, you're better off with the sealed battery, because even though it evaporates some, it evaporates slower and a sealed battery that you do no maintenance at all will last longer than a battery that has tops that come off, and as said if you do have one with tops and come off use distilled water because local water usually has a lot of minerals in it, and then the minerals will settle to the bottom of the plates of the battery and short the thing out.
So now you know five ways that you can let your car battery last as long as possible, you won't get stranded somewhere or even worse, have a car that has damage done to it electronically because of a problem in the battery or the wiring.