When weather gets cold, check on electrical components

WASHINGTON - It’s happened to almost every longtime driver.

You get out the door just in time to make it to work, or class, or daycare drop-off. It’s colder than you expected, but you didn’t quite have time to grab a hat or gloves or heavier coat in your rush to the car. You hop in, get situated, and turn the ignition as you fumble for the seat belt.

But nothing happens. No engine roars to life. It may crank a few times, but nothing turns over. A weak array of lights on the dashboard confirms quite certainly that something is wrong, and you realize that now, you’re going to be late.

Cold weather is hard on a car’s electrical parts. Low temps slow the chemical reaction that car batteries need to provide a charge.

“Batteries will take a big tax, it seems like the lead-acid batteries will take a harder hit,” said Steve Feliciano, a parts specialist at O’Reilly Auto Parts in Washington. “They tend to freeze, it could kill the cells of the battery.”

That strain means vehicle owners should be more mindful of things that use their car’s battery power. Especially in newer vehicles, plenty of systems run 24/7, like internal computers, anti-theft devices and sensors that allow keyless starts.

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If a car doesn’t get fired up and moving pretty regularly, those systems start to drain the battery. Counterintuitively, Feliciano said the best line of defense against low batteries was turning the car on and using it more often.

“That’s one of the biggest killers of batteries, just never using the battery and letting it sit,” he said. “And if you’re going to let it sit, disconnect the battery, at least if it’s going to be more than two weeks.”

Even if a weak car battery doesn’t prevent a car from starting, it can pose a risk to other components. Feliciano said weak batteries put strain on the alternator, a more expensive piece of equipment that channels electricity to countless other vehicle systems.

The lifespan of an alternator can vary greatly, but Feliciano said to stay on the lookout for the battery warning light on your dashboard, or repeated difficulty starting the car in cold weather. It’s hard to know what to look for under the hood without a trained eye, but many auto shops and parts stores offer free testing on batteries and alternators, to help drivers know what’s working and what’s not.

“You can bring it in here, there’s another parts store in town and they do free testing on that,” he said. “We’ll hook up to your charging system, make sure that it’s putting out the correct voltage, make sure that there’s no other issues within that system.”

Comments: Kalen.McCain@southeastiowaunion.com