Preparing Your Battery For The Colder Days

Most of the time car batteries fail when the temperature outside are getting lower or are fluctuating more during the day.

The reason for this is colder temperature affect the chemical reaction inside the battery that produce the charge to the terminals.
The battery become less effecient.

If your battery is more than 3 years old you can listen for the signs.

When you start in the morning if it sound more slugish than usual you might want to do the following checks:

• Make sure the connection are tight
• Make sure that the cable are in good condition
• Unsure that the terminals are clean no sulphation
• Check it's voltage more than 12.5 Volt
• Check that the liquid is 5 mm above the plate for refillable batteries
• Check battery external protection

To prevent this to happen you can first test it with a battery load tester to know how healthy it is.

Following this you can charge it with an external battery charger to make sure it's topped up.

Also you can check that your alternator is charging properly, for this use a voltmeter connected to the battery terminal when the engine is running you should get more than 14 Volts if not you might have a problem with your alternator.

Further to this if you want to give more life to your battery you might want to add some battery conditioner to extend it's life.