7 Common Car Battery Problems and How To Fix?
The car batteries are mainly rechargeable batteries consisting of lead plates used to power the vehicle with electric current.
It is used to give power to the starter, which function is to start the engine and the rest of the electrical power is supplied by the alternator.
Although batteries take up very little space and are very efficient, yet they cause a lot of issues. The ADAC reported that, among car problems, about 52% of car failures over 6 years or more are due to batteries.
Some of the most common car battery problems are listed below:
1) Loose terminals / terminals:
In a battery, there are two terminals or station known as positive and negative terminals. These connectors of the battery are attached to electrical system of the car via cables and sometimes due to technical issues the terminals didn’t attached firmly and connection of the battery to the electrical system of the car breaks.
Corrosion on the terminals can also lead to this problem. In addition, moving the car on a rough road can also cause the connection to loosen and break.
2) Highlight:
Another most common factor of car battery drainage is to leave the headlights on. Headlights or even any other type of low light can deplete your entire battery in one night.
The best practice, in this matter, is always checking the headlights are off before leaving the car. You can use trickle charger if your battery is dead and engine of the car doesn’t start.
The net loaders remain on the battery and charge them slowly. The trickle charger is also very useful if you do not want to use the car. The trickle charger also prevents battery drain, which often happens.
In such a case, your batteries will remain charged, so if in case of emergency, the battery will be charged.
3) Battery life:
On average, the life of the lead battery for cars is 4 to 5 years .After this time, the battery is unable to take the full load of the car and it cannot start.
In addition, other factors, such as draining even a small leak, can damage and reduce the life of a car's battery.
4) Charge issues:
In some cases, the battery is not charged properly due to mechanical issue and you can stuck in issues like while driving the car stops suddenly or randomly when you start the engine it doesn’t initiate the ignition.
5) Corroded diode:
We know that the alternator is responsible for supplying power to the car's electrical equipment after turning on the engine.
If, for whatever reason, the diode eventually corrodes, it will extract the power out of the battery, even when the battery is off. Therefore, in a short period of time, the battery will become useless.
6) Extreme weather conditions:
The car's battery is immensely affected by the weather, both summer and winter.
The reason is that when the temperature gets too hot or too low, the lead in the batteries starts to form lead sulphate which drains more battery charge, thus reducing the life of your battery.
In addition, extreme weather conditions are also cause for some other car issues.
7) Low liquid level:
Although most people disagree with the including of this factor, in reality, lowering the electrolyte levels in the batteries takes more time to charge the batteries and quickly draining the battery charge.
The interesting thing about this factor is that it is one of the most important contributors, because people tend to neglect these things and end up paying more.
The best approach is to check the fluid level about every two weeks if you use the car quite frequently and about a month if you use less.
