Maintaining Your Automotive Battery

Do you know that the most frequent causes of vehicle breakdown are due to automotive battery failure?

There are many reasons an automotive battery can fail and extreme temperature is at the top on the list. Tropical hot weather is a literal battery killer in our region.

A parasitic drain will also drain a new battery. Although battery will almost certainly charge back up just fine, especially if you have a battery charger on hand. This drain if not identified in the vehicle electrical system will cause the battery to go dead again cyclically.

To prevent the chance of this kind of drain during pro-long storage, it might be simply to disconnect the battery as a common thing. It’s true this will prevent any possible drain in the vehicle’s electrical system from killing the battery, but a normal self-discharge will also eventually drain even a brand-new battery to a critical low level or even to a point of no return.

Keeping Weather from Killing Your Battery

There isn’t a lot you can do to protect your battery from hot tropical weather. However, the best way to help prevent high temperature from killing a battery is to just make sure it’s always in the best shape possible.

What that means is that a battery that is properly maintained and charged will be able to handle the types of severe temperature range that can cause battery failures. For instance, the electrolyte in a battery is more likely to evaporate away during hot tropical weather.  

Keeping a Parasitic Drain from Killing Your Battery

Identifying a parasitic drain before it kills your battery can be hard since you typically won’t notice anything out of the ordinary. Although it’s easy to leave your headlights on without noticing, that type of situation has an outward indicator that shows something is wrong. In the case of many parasitic drains, the component that’s drawing current unknowingly when your car is off does nothing to draw car owners’ attention until when you start your car and hear the starter clicking unsuccessfully.

The key is to identify the source of the drain and fix it, preventing the battery from being drained down multiple times. Since permanent damage is done every time the voltage of a lead acid battery drops below a certain level. It is a good idea to deal with this type of problem as soon as possible especially in the aftermarket when vehicles are much older and prone to possible wear and tear in the electrical wiring system.

If you suspect there is a possible parasitic drain, please have your vehicle checked by a workshop mechanic.