Three Steps You Can Take to Prevent Your Car Battery From Dying
Discovering that your car battery has died when you're midway through a road journey can be incredibly stressful. Here are three steps you can take to prevent your battery from suddenly dying.
Watch out for signs of a failing alternator
A car's alternator is designed to keep the battery fully charged and to supply power to other electrical components. As such, if your vehicle's alternator develops a major fault, the battery could up end dying within a matter of hours.
Given this, if you're concerned about the possibility of your car battery dying unexpectedly, it's important to take action as soon as you notice any signs that could indicate that there is a problem with the alternator.
Some of the most common indicators of a failing alternator include flickering or dim lights and a reduction in the responsiveness of other electrically powered components (such as the windows, radio or air conditioning system).
If you notice any of these problems, you should take your vehicle to a mechanic who offers alternator repair services as soon as possible.
Get into the habit of turning off electrical components before you leave the car
A lot of car owners occasionally forget to switch off the lights before they exit their vehicles. In instances where these electrical components are only left on for an hour or two, this isn't a problem.
However, leaving your car's lights or other electrically-powered parts switched on overnight, for example, will probably drain the battery to the point where it is completely dead by the following morning.
As such, it's worth getting into the habit of checking that all of your vehicle's electrical components are turned off each time you park it.
Performing this task slowly and methodically every time will reduce the likelihood of you accidentally overlooking one of the components.
Increase the length of your road journeys
If you routinely use your car for short road journeys, then there is a chance that the battery will die at some point.
The reason for this is that brief bouts of driving do not provide a car battery with the time it needs to fully recharge.
Given this, it is worth taking a longer route to work or school every few days. Whilst this might mean that you have to spend a little extra money on fuel, it could spare you the much larger expenses associated with having a car with a dead battery towed and recharged.
