Battery failures are the main cause of breakdowns in Spain, which have increased by 17% compared to 2021. In the middle of winter, with humidity and low temperatures, they tend to become common
calls to helpdesks because the car won’t start. They are battery failures, especially when it already has several years of life, and that we normally attribute to the fact that these weather conditions deteriorate it. But in reality it is not like that, since although the failures occur in winter, when they deteriorate the most is in summer.
After the extreme and prolonged heat waves of last summer and the low temperatures of these last weeks, this winter the batteries could fail
more than in previous years. Even in normal years, failing 12-volt batteries are responsible for nearly half of all vehicle breakdowns, and this applies to both combustion engine and modern electric cars.
Despite the mildness of recent winters, low battery voltage has been one of the major causes of car breakdowns, largely due to this
is due to downtime that has arisen as a result of the confinements and teleworking, which has caused the batteries to lose voltage and will not be recharged. The low temperatures that are being recorded this winter also directly affect the batteries, causing failures.
To this are added
the very hot days of this summer, which are the ones that wear out batteries: high temperatures cause the battery to self-discharge, which ages it more quickly. This situation has already taken its toll on batteries this year. Also, cold weather affects performance and engine starts put more strain on the battery, all of which will be too much for older or poorer condition batteries. A single frosty night is enough for the battery to fail to start the engine. Even in the excessively warm winters of recent years, an average of more than 50 days of frost has been recorded in Europe.
This is a critical situation, since 2022 has been a record year in failures of Spanish vehicles with 1,347,707 assistances, a figure that has increased by 17% compared to 2021, according to the Royal Automobile Club of Spain (RACE). . The problems related to
the batteries occupied the first position in number of incidents in automobiles in Spanish territory. In Spain, according to
AEMETDuring this summer, the worst heat wave was recorded since the series began, in 1961, with temperatures of more than 44 °C, for example, in some Andalusian cities. In the case of Portugal, temperatures of up to 45 °C were reached.
“The car battery ages with the heat in summer and ends up deteriorating in winter,” he warns
Roberto Beesmans, an expert in batteries from the company Clarios, manufacturer of VARTA batteries. “Therefore, drivers should plan to have their vehicle’s battery checked annually at their trusted workshop.”
How to choose a battery
To choose the right battery for our vehicle, we must bear in mind that there are two types of car batteries. The first ones with maintenance, which are sold less and less, since they have to be filled with distilled water. and the second
those that do not need maintenancemade of cadmium alloy, silver or gel.
When choosing a new battery for our car, we must take its capacity into account: take a look at the car manual and choose the one with the highest capacity, 72 Ah (amps) and 540 A charge reserve. Car batteries They usually offer you up to two years of warranty, there are even stores that offer three. Another aspect to take into account is the “starting reserve”, which cannot be less than 300A.
In order for car batteries to last longer, what can be done when the car is not going to be used for a long time is to disconnect it. It is a way to prevent it from downloading. The only drawback is that it decodes the stereo. It will also be necessary to set the clock on time and memorize the opening and closing of windows or
connect computer to configure the battery and notify the system that we have replaced it. Another thing that can be done is to smear the terminals with petroleum jelly, and clean them with cola or hot water with bicarbonate of soda.
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