Your car battery is very important to the overall functionality of your car. It is responsible for providing electric power to the spark plugs from the motor, igniting the car’s fuel, and giving power to all the various electrical and electronic gadgets in the car. Sometimes, these duties – couples with other factors can cause the battery to drain fast. So let us look at a few ways we can avoid having our car batteries dying too quickly.
Avoid Human Error
You need to make sure that whenever you are leaving your car, you thoroughly inspect your car to make sure there are no electrical or electronic systems running. Make sure all lights are off and all doors are properly shut. Also be sure that your air condition isn’t left running and your radio isn’t on either.
Failure to do this might result in you missing out on any of the battery using electronics and will ultimately lead to a dead battery if this continues for a while or if you leave it overnight.
Remove Battery Cables
In case you are not the patient type to be checking for running electrical and electronic features in your car, this method is for you. All you have to do is pop your car‘s hood and carefully disconnect the battery cables from the battery. The only disadvantage of this is that whenever you are ready to use the car again, you will have to open the hood again to reconnect the cables. Also on the inside, you will have to start resetting the clock, which might take a little time.
The last and probably the biggest disadvantage of this is that your car security will not be functional when your battery cables are unplugged.
Minimize Parasitic Drain
Electrical problems in cars are also referred to as parasitic drain by mechanics. However, it has to be accepted that such drains are a normal occurrence because there are certain features such as car alarm system, radio presets, clock, etc that need to continue running even after you power down your engine. But when it becomes a problem is when certain factors such as faulty wiring, defective fuses and poor installation of these components cause the components to drain the battery more than normal and deplete it in the process.
What you can do to minimize this drain is to check in with your mechanic and get rid of the faulty components or get them fixed.
Avoid Extreme Temperature
Extreme temperature, whether extremely hot or extremely cold can lead to the buildup of Lead sulfate crystals. Situations like this tend to extend the charging time of the battery, and this will be a very huge problem if you only drive in short distances.
Apart from the longer charging time, the battery might fail and be limited to a very short life if left in such harsh environment. Since the only form of extreme temperature we have here is heat, it is advised that we should park our cars in shades to avoid our batteries getting drained quickly.
Make sure the charging system isn’t defective
The electrical components of your car derive power from the alternator whenever you are driving. At the same time, this alternator is also responsible for charging the car battery. Unfortunately, if there is a problem in the charging process, there is a possibility that the battery will drain since it will be the one powering the electrical components in the car. Make sure your alternator and all the other components that are required to charge the battery are working fine.