Winter season not only makes life difficult for you but it can be harsh for your automotive friend. During winters, reduced visibility, low temperatures, and slippery roads can pose difficulties for you to drive seamlessly. In the same way, cold weather conditions can diminish the ability of batteries to supply sufficient power to start and run the vehicle. This makes it crucial to protect car batteries from cold temperatures.
Still confused about the impact of temperature on battery, let’s learn more about automotive batteries with JCBL India:
Automotive batteries generate electric current or energy through chemical reactions. The chemical reaction speeds up at high temperatures. But, when the temperature goes above the capacity of the battery, it can cause severe damage. Low temperature, on the other hand, can reduce the speed of chemical reactions further causing difficulty in starting the vehicle and providing sufficient power to vehicle components.
Due to negligence during winters, the overall battery health of automobiles can be tarnished further increasing your expenses.
Effective Ways To Protect Car Battery From Winter?
Taking care of your car’s battery is as important as taking care of your own body to keep it working in a healthy state during the winter. To protect car batteries from dying in winter, you can adopt the following ways:
Regular battery health check-ups
Just like other automotive components, batteries also require regular health checkups to evaluate their condition. By performing regular health checkups before the winter season, you can identify any faults in the batteries and take adequate measures to improve their capacity to hold the charge. The very first step you can take to check your car battery health is to check the battery indicator, commonly located on the dashboard. When the battery indicator is not illuminated, it might be a sign of bad car battery health. Also, dimmer headlights can be a sign that your car’s battery is dying.
Booking a car service appointment is also a good choice for ensuring the health of your car’s battery. A mechanic can test battery voltage, load, and electrolyte levels to determine the battery’s condition.
Use your car often
Cold temperatures can make it difficult to keep the car’s battery charged. Thus, driving your car often in winter can help you protect your car batteries
How is it possible?
When you drive your vehicle, the alternator (one of the essential parts of a car’s engine that converts mechanical energy into electrical energy) charges the battery. So when you drive often during the winter, your car’s battery stays charged. So, 30-40 minutes of driving is necessary to maintain good battery health and protect car batteries in cold temperatures.
There are numerous benefits of using your car often during winter such as:
- Prevent battery discharge.
- Prevention of parasitic drain by counterbalancing the slow drainage
- Improves overall health of vehicle
Keep your car charged using a battery charger
A battery charger helps charge the car battery. It is used in situations when the vehicle needs to be parked for a longer time. It supplies energy to the car’s battery to protect it from being discharged.
You can purchase different types of battery chargers for cars such as tender and trickle chargers:
- Tender charger: It activates once the power of the car’s battery drops. After fully charging the car battery, it automatically switches to maintenance mode.
- Trickle charger: Trickle charger provides energy continuously to the car’s battery to prevent it from getting discharged. Auto-regulators are used in trickle chargers to prevent batteries from overcharging.
These chargers are easy to use and protect car batteries from dying. You can leave it on the car’s battery without the fear of battery being overcharged.
Keep battery clean
To improve a car’s battery life, it is essential to clean the corrosion and dirt from the battery and terminals as it can reduce the battery’s capability to charge and send power to the engine.
Why cleaning your car’s battery is important?
- Cleaning your car’s battery regularly safeguards the battery from any damage that can reduce its overall life expectancy.
- It improves connectivity of the battery with other electrical components to ensure good connectivity for power sharing.
- By cleaning corrosion and dirt from the battery, self-discharge can be prevented.
By keeping your battery clean, you can improve its overall efficiency and health during the winter.
Use a block heater or battery blanket
Just like you need a blanket in winter to stay warm, a car’s battery also requires one to stay charged. You can use a block heater or battery blanket to block the cold temperatures and keep the battery warm. It helps to reduce the wear and tear caused due to cold weather further reducing the strain on the battery to start the car easily.
You can opt out two ways to keep your car’s battery warm:
- Block heater: A block heater mainly works on the engine’s coolant to keep the engine block and oil warm to ease the ignition in cold weather. This, in turn, protects car batteries by reducing the strain on them.
- Battery blanket: A battery blanket is wrapped across the battery to protect car batteries from cold temperatures by keeping them warm. In warm temperatures, the chemical reactions speed up, giving a smooth start to the engine.
You can use either of them up to your choice to make a smooth start on cold winter mornings and protect car batteries.
Conclusion
Overall, keeping your car’s battery health good is of utmost importance, especially during winter. You can follow the aforementioned measures to protect car batteries from cold temperatures and ensure their overall health.
Are you looking for a battery replacement for your automotive friend?
Get high-performance automotive batteries that meet international standards at JCBL India. Here, products are meticulously designed and manufactured to meet the quality standards of the international market. Click on this link to check other automotive spare parts:
FAQ
How often do I need to check my battery in the winter season?
You should check the car’s battery once before the winter to ensure that it is in good state. After that, you can clean the battery or perform health checkups once a month to improve its capacity to hold charge.
How many times do I need to use my car to prevent battery discharge?
To prevent battery discharge, you should use your car at least once a week for more than 30 minutes. It would be good if you avoid shorter trips or you can start your engine once in a while in a week even if you are not using it.
How to know that a car’s battery needs to be replaced?
When the car’s battery is about to die or discharge, the battery indicator might not be illuminated. Or you might observe that headlights are dimmer than before. These might be early signs to check your battery health or replace it.
Why performance of the battery degrades during winter?
To supply power or energy to the engine and other electronic components, a chemical reaction takes place in the battery. In cold temperatures, this process slows down causing more strain on the battery to start. As a result of this, the capacity to hold the charge and overall battery performance degrades.
