Car Battery Tips

Top Ten Starting Battery Tips

  1. Wear glasses when working with a battery, because it might explode.

  1. Keep your non-sealed battery properly filled with distilled water and the top clean. The plates must be covered at all times.

  2. To prevent permanent sulfation when not in use and especially in hot weather, keep your battery continuously connected to a "smart" or maintenance charger or recharge your battery at least one per week. Cheap unregulated "trickle" chargers will kill your battery.

  1. In hot climates, keep your battery as cool as possible and non-sealed Low Maintenance or sealed AGM batteries are recommended.

  2. When buying a replacement battery, be sure it matches your charging system & Cold Cranking Amps (CCA) requirements, physically fits, and is fresh.

  1. Keep the battery cable mating surfaces and terminals free from corrosion.

  2. Avoid a deep discharge of your battery. This could kill it.

  1. For longer battery life, do not add acid or additives and keep your battery securely fastened.

  2. Use chargers (or settings) that will recharge batteries over eight to ten hours.

  1. Thaw out a frozen battery before attempting to jump or recharge it and always jump batteries positive-to-positive and negative-to-negative. For negative grounded electrical systems, the last negative connection should be to the frame or engine block away from the battery.

For additional battery information, please go to

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Reply to
Bill Darden
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Great list, and best of all it did not include that old (out of date) advice to not store them on a concrete floor.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

And, extension of number 7, don't leave the truck connected to the pop-up with the 3-way fridge set to DC. Trust me on this one.

Reply to
CMF

Good advice Bill, you might also want to mention one important fact. The reason car batteries explode. They produce highly explosive hydrogen as a byproduct of the charging process. Batteries often explode when the owner is trying to jump start his or her car. The spark from the contact of the last jumper lead can ignite the hydrogen causing an explosion spreading battery acid everywhere. The way to avoid this is to connect the positive and negative leads to the battery of the donor car, at the dead battery, connect the positive lead to the battery and then find a place far removed as possible on the frame of the car for the negative lead. This will still spark but it should be far enough away not to ignite any hydrogen coming from the battery. All of us, at one time or another have had to jump a car. How many times have you ever seen some one hook up battery leads correctly with the last negative lead attached to the frame?

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Reply to
cc0112453

Most batteries do not come fully charged. They have some charge, but it may be very low. This does not hurt the battery to be stored in this state. The problem comes up after they have been fully charged and then discharged. They need to be recharged quickly or they can be damaged. Your WallyWorld battery may have been just fine.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

You may be absolutely right, Joseph, but in 45+ years of owning cars and replacing batteries I have never bought one that was DOA.

Charlie

Reply to
Charlie Bress

Reply to
tflfb

You have five years on me, but I have never replaced a battery that I did not charge first.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

But they also instruct you to take a fairly long drive after installing it to charge the battery. I just charge it before I install.

Reply to
Joseph Meehan

That's nothing new.. I was taught that years ago.

Reply to
Tim Connelly

Yeah, or the "charge the new battey" or "take a long drive after installing a new one" 'advice'. Which, since I began buying car and truck batteries some 30 years ago, I've never had to do.

Reply to
Tim Connelly

Can't hurt if you have the charger, I suppose.

A couple more tips:

- Don't believe that "maintenance free" nonsense. Most batteries still have removable caps, they just make them look less removable. They still drop the level a little over time, so check and re-fill with distilled water when necessary.

- Buy Diehards. They usually last the rated life - at least until you leave the lights on for a couple of day (ahem). When they die, Sears will honor the guarantee without a whimper and if you've lost your paperwork, will base the credit on the date stamp on the battery.

Bob

Reply to
'nuther Bob

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