A dead car battery is probably the last thing you would want to worry about while traveling far from home. Know the common dead car battery symptoms in this article.
According to experts, the average life of a car battery goes up to 5 years in ideal conditions. However, owing to obvious reasons, this is not the case. Once your vehicle gets seasoned, you cannot be sure when its battery would run out of breath and give you a hard time fixing it. But the good thing is that a dead battery is easy to diagnose once you are well versed with the symptoms. Moreover, when compared to other parts of a vehicle, the battery is less pricey.
Symptoms
- Accessories like headlights, taillights, radio, interior lights, power windows, music system, power doors, windshield wipers, etc., are driven by the power of car battery. So, once the power source goes dead, these cease to function properly.
- Normally, when you give the ignition, the engine cranks. But if the battery is dead, you would hear just a clicking noise.
- If you are lucky, you can still jump-start your vehicle even with a dead battery. However, even if this technique does not work, as in, the battery dies again after the initial jump, then it may indicate that it has completely drained.
- Another common sign of a dead battery could be a foul odor, similar to that of a rotten egg. This smell is of sulfuric acid. Usually, this smell indicates that the jumping has been done in an improper manner.
- In case you did not know, the horn of the vehicle consumes more power than the headlights. So, if the horn stops working, you may certain that your batter is about to die, even if the headlights flicker.
- If the panic button does not respond, then it may be an indication that the battery has gone dead.
- If the battery is more than three years old and is showing such signs, you can be certain that it has run its course and it’s time you went for a replacement.
Causes
- You have left the interior lights on for a long time.
- The car audio system has been running for an entire night.
- A malfunctioning alternator (an electric generator that produces alternating current).
- A substandard battery is also a cause that is common in most cases.
- Frequent use of accessories, as mentioned above, also drains the battery.
- Problem such as the upper half lacking acid also drains the battery. This may occur when the electrolyte gets collected at the bottom of the appliance.
- Improper maintenance is also an obvious cause, and so is improper charging of the system.
Charging A Dead Battery
- You would require another car with a battery that is fully charged.
- Place your car in front of the other one that you have arranged.
- Now, get a positive cable whose one terminal is to be connected to the positive terminal of the working battery (mostly red) and the other end to the positive terminal of the dead battery.
- Now, one end of the negative cable (ground cable) must be connected to the negative terminal of the reviving battery. The other end of the cable has to be connected to a non-painted metal surface that is not on the engine.
- Once you have the connections all set, start the other car and wait for some time. Thereafter, check if you are able to start your vehicle. Ideally it should, but if it does not, then run the other car for some more time.
As you can see, the symptoms of a dead car battery are not very difficult to decipher. So, once such symptoms occur, try charging the battery, or if it is too old, get it replaced.
