Caring for your car battery to start the coldest winter

When temperatures begin to fall dangerously to almost zero degrees Celsius at night should keep in mind the state of the battery of our car. It is one of the most important parts of their daily functioning engine, as is the push I needed the starter to start the engine, and is also the one who suffers the cold more.

Today we will tell you how to proceed if you begin to notice that the car will not start either in the morning, if not start and how to prevent us happen again.

Check the level of battery charge

NEEDLESS MANY TOOLS OR KNOWLEDGE TO KNOW HOW IS OUR BATTERY

Here we have two options, one traditional and one professional. The traditional is to know our car and know how it sounds. If we start the car in the morning the starter motor rotates lazily or detect that goes “slow motion” is because the battery is beginning to weaken.

Professional detection involves pulling ammeter, which is a device with two poles that connect to the terminals and that will give us the voltage across a screen on the gadget. If you give us less than 12.5 V reading we will have to take action.

Now the batteries are already “maintenance” and are sealed, so we can forget to fill as in the past to stretch a little life. What are other shippers who pasted them a good chute, but will not make our battery is eternal.

Avoid confusions

This sounds obvious; one of the biggest culprits in the loss of battery power is cluelessness. Let us connected lights, a badly closed door, a courtesy light turned very stupid things … it is increasingly difficult to occur by advertisers, but they can keep passing though modern cars have modes “energy saving” so that disconnect all electricity consumed after a while without the key in the ignition.

Still, it never hurts to make a little mental review to prevent oversights that we can be costly in the morning.

Do not leave the car stopped a long time

In theory, if we leave a car stopped for months would not consume energy and should start on the first try, but it is not. The batteries are recharged if not slowly losing its payload and end when we want to reuse the car we will find a car that will not start.

The ideal is to shop around every week to recharge the alternator, the engine will move to that does not cost so many boots and boot no higher power of the account. But we know that we will not use the car all we can do so that we do not go the battery is disconnected terminals.

Fight the cold

CHERISH OUR CAR CAN BE RIDICULOUS, BUT IT IS A WAY TO AVOID THE BATTERY WE COME DOWN EARLY

Low temperatures and winters are most affecting the lives of our batteries. If we can protect the car from frost in a garage get not suffer so much, but if we have options of having the car under roof can cover the engine compartment under the hood, with a fat blanket such as moving.

Keep terminals clean

The terminals are the connection points between the poles of the battery and electrical systems that need to be fed. It is no use having a new battery if the terminals are dirty, corroded or worn. In these cases the connection is good and electricity will not flow properly.

For our terminals are kept in perfect magazine we can use a battery change to clean them with baking soda and water, a brush and a tack cloth to remove any stubborn dirt. And before mounting again we apply petrolatum to prevent corrosion.

Put the clamps

If she ends up fainting battery and have no choice but to put clamps, quiet. It’s easy, simple and also cheap. A set of good tweezers (really good) is less than 30 dollars in a parts store and boot in its case do not take up almost no space.

Well, the mess. The first is to take another car (a relative, friend, neighbor, acquaintance, Good Samaritan …), so we parked next to the engine to, put positive to positive and negative to negative and, if all is well, we could start again, no more.

BUY AND CHANGING A BATTERY IS NOT A COMPLICATED OPERATION OR WHICH WE SHOULD BE AFRAID, WE NEED ONLY LOOK INTO FOUR LITTLE THINGS

If the starter turns, but not enough, and the car will not start we can leave our car carrying the contact removed and past a few minutes to try again speeding car “donor”.

Once we got started we charging the battery, but not enough to leave the engine running five minutes, the alternator does not generate enough current. We must give a good return, in conditions and, if possible, with the lights (and day, of course). Sometimes not even that is enough, that’s because the battery has reached the end of its useful life and touch us change.

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Battery replacement

But do not fall into panic; battery replacement is a simple operation that can be done without having to go through the workshop, almost without tools and without having to resort to manual.

When we buy a new battery must take into account the need to respect the voltage and amperage of the original battery. In the homes of parts we can say exactly what battery model is valid for our car because there are different sizes within the same type and we have to fit into the hole in the engine compartment.

Then in our garage, we’ll just loosen the terminals (remove the negative first), we release the battery holder, we get old, we assemble the new support and terminals in place (in this case backwards, first the positive and then the negative).

Ready! And now we have battery butt and cold, do not forget these tips, there’s going to be you to stay out of battery prematurely.