How Often To Replace a Car Battery?

Replacing your car’s battery is one of the most important maintenance steps that you can take to ensure that you’re vehicle is running at top capacity. But it can be hard for you to know how often to replace a car battery or how to know if your car battery needs to be replaced. Especially if you don’t have much auto maintenance experience. 

You can use this guide to learn more about how often to replace a car battery, how much is a replacement car battery, and more! You can also schedule an appointment with our service center for in-person service at Freeway Toyota. Contact us today for more information on how to test a car battery and more auto maintenance info!

How To Know If Your Car battery Needs To Be Replaced

There are many signs that can indicate if your car’s battery needs to be replaced. Knowing about these signs is a good way to know if you’re battery needs to be replaced before costly damages occur. If you’re struggling on how to know if your car battery needs to be replaced, see some of the signs that indicate a battery replacement:

• Dimming headlights
• More frequent need for engine revving or jump-starts
• Takes longer to start the engine when you turn the key/push the button
• Unusual power fluctuations

What Causes a Car Battery to Deteriorate?

There are many elements and causes of auto battery deterioration on your vehicle in Fresno. Some things you can control and others you can’t, that’s why it’s important to know how often a car battery needs to be replaced. Learn more about the damaging elements to your car’s battery:

• Heat: Hot weather causes the evaporation of liquids inside a car battery, so if you live in a more consistently hot climate your battery life will be inevitably shorter.
• Vibrations: If your battery’s hold-down clamps are loose, or you drive over rough roads frequently, vibrations will cause internal battery parts to break down faster.
• Needing a Jump: If you’ve done something like leave your lights on overnight or let your engine idle for too long and require a jump start, this can shorten battery life significantly.
• Time: A car battery can only go through so many charge cycles, so the death of your car battery is unavoidable, but proper care can prevent the battery from dying on you early. 

How To Test a Car Battery

Now, before running off to your local auto parts store near Tulare or to an auto repair shop, test the battery first. But if you ask, “I don’t know how to test a car battery. What do I do?” use the following tips that have proven useful with our Hanford customers:

The Headlight Test: 

1. Turn on the engine, keep the car in park, and make sure the headlights are on.
2. Rev the engine and see if the headlight brightness changes.
3. If the headlights get brighter, that means the current is not strong enough to keep the lights at normal brightness while the car is idling. 
4. Take your car to a service center at this point for further assessment.

Using a Digital Multimeter:

1. Set the voltmeter to 20 DC volts.
2. Under the hood, touch the negative terminal (black) with the negative meter probe (also black).
3. Touch the positive terminal (red) with the positive meter probe (also red)
4. Have a friend turn on the headlights and check the voltmeter reading.
5. At 80℉, 12.5 volts or higher means your battery is fully charged. 12.3 volts means it’s at about 75% charged.11.8 volts or lower means you have 25% or less charge. 

Battery Replacement Cost

Many of our customers who visit our service center near Selma often ask how much is a replacement car battery. For basic batteries, you’ll pay between $70 – $120, and for premium car batteries, you’ll pay around $200 for them. Hybrid car batteries are a completely different story, you’ll be paying between $1,000 to $2,000 for these batteries.

Service Your Vehicle’s Car Battery at Freeway Toyota

Now that you’ve seen some of the best tips for car battery replacement and how to test a car battery, give these tips a go from home. If they seem too hard or you’d rather let professionals do it, come down to our service center at Freeway Toyota, and we’ll take it from here. Contact us for more information today!