How to Know if the Car Battery is Dead?

A car’s battery is the most crucial component, not only does it power every electrical circuit but also provides the necessary power to your car’s engine.

As a car owner, it’s the most infuriating feeling is when you switch on the ignition but nothing happens, it’s a clear sign of a dead battery.

But how to know if the car battery is dead?

Well, there are different symptoms of having a dead car battery, you can identify it by inspecting the battery’s condition or just switching on the car’s ignition key.

If the battery is dead, the car won’t start, unresponsive ignition, a delayed start, and a Swollen Battery Size are some of the symptoms of having a dead battery.

There are other ways to identify your car battery’s condition, whether it’s dead or not, which we’ll discuss in our coming segments.

So, without further ado, let’s go deep into our segments.

How Long Does a Car Battery Last?

Batteries are the lifeline of your vehicle, and as we mentioned, it powers everything from the electrical circuit to your car’s engine.

Unfortunately, like other components of your car batteries too, die at a certain point. But before how long?

How long a battery will last doesn’t have a specific answer, as its lifespan depends on many different factors.

However, the most common factor is how well it’s taken care of. Generally, with proper care and use, a car battery lasts about 3 to 4 years, it could be more or less.

What Causes a Battery to Go Bad And Force it to become Dead?

As we mentioned earlier, batteries do die after some time. But sometimes they die before time, which takes us to this segment, where we’ll explain some of the major reasons why your car’s battery might die.

Here’re some of the major reasons why your car battery goes bad:

1. Not in Use or Remain Idle for a Longtime

Just so you know batteries are meant to be in regular use, otherwise, the battery’s cells lose it’s charging capacity through its self-discharging process. After a certain period of time, it goes bad or dies completely.

2. Exposure to Extreme Temperature

Exposure to any extreme temperature is the biggest enemy of your car battery. Batteries aren’t designed to withstand any extreme cold or heat. It could also make battery cells go bad and cause permanent and irreparable damage.

3. Unclean Cables

Batteries are connected by positive and negative wiring to your vehicle. The wires transfer charge from the battery to your car’s electrical circuits and provide power.

An unclean cable/ wire makes it hard to transfer the necessary power and hampers the regular outputs and damages the battery’s power cells, which causes it to go bad.

4. Vibrations

When the engine ignites your car naturally starts vibrating. However, generally, it doesn’t affect the battery. Battery cells consist of positive and negative grids which allow power to flow through them.

If the vibration starts to affect the battery it directly affects the battery cells and ruins the grid and renders the battery useless.

5. Corroded Terminals

Batteries are consists of positive and negative terminals which allow them to power everything in your car. Over time or due to long hours of driving, these terminals get corroded and stop working properly.

Although, a corroded terminal doesn’t necessarily make your battery go bad, however, if it’s not cleaned and maintained properly it can lead to a dead battery.

6. Fast And Overcharging

Fast and overcharging may seem like a good idea, but it’s not. There’s a misconception about batteries amongst the common users who believe that fast and overcharging is good for the battery.

Fast or overcharging slowly decade the battery’s ability to hold its regular power supply and eventually render it unusable.

How to Identify A Dead Battery in Your Car?

Identifying a dead battery is crucial if you want to have a smooth ride in your car. This is because without a battery your car won’t be able to start and provide the necessary service. Fortunately, there are ways to identify the battery’s condition, with it you can easily identify whether or not your car battery functioning properly.

So, how to know if the car battery is dead or not, then,  here are a few of the effective ways to identify a dead battery:

Unresponsive Ignition

Car ignition is a vital part of starting it, if it doesn’t ignite properly, your car won’t be able to start. You can say the ignition provides the power to get the engine starting.

Just so you know, your car’s ignition is caused by a power supply from the battery. If your car’s battery is dead, it can’t provide the necessary power to produce the ignition.

In that case, when you turn your car on via switch/key, your car won’t respond to the car ignition.

Unresponsive Engine

Batteries and engines are interrelated, one can not be viable without the other. As you know the engine is a key component that helps your car to function properly.

And without a good battery, your engine won’t be able to function properly. This is because the battery provides the necessary power to keep the engine going and make your car run smoothly.

In this case, when you start your car, it will make the sound of ignition but won’t be able to provide the necessary power to the engine, and will be unable to start your car.

Delayed Start

Have you ever wondered, why won’t your car starts the way it’s used, and why it takes so long? Well, it’s because of the battery. As we mentioned earlier, every essential part of your car is powered by the battery, if it’s not working nothing in your car will work properly.

Swollen Battery Size

As we mentioned earlier, fast charging or overcharging may seem like a good idea at a time but it’s unhealthy for your car’s battery. Continues use of either of the methods will create a swollen shape over the battery and gradually makes the battery useless.

If you see any sign of swollen shape over your car’s battery, it means the battery is either dead or dying.

Headlights/ Radio Not Working

From your car’s engine to the radio, a car’s battery powers all. If you find yourself in a situation, where you’re trying to turn the radio/ headlights on but it doesn’t respond properly or doesn’t turn on at all.

It means your battery is either dying or dead.

Odd Smell

Just so you know, the battery contains liquid acid and it’s quite an essential part of the battery. When your car’s battery is dead or dying, your battery will start producing an odd smell. If you ever smell something like a rotten egg from your car battery, it means your car battery is either dying or dead.

Old Battery

Like everything your car battery also has an estimated lifespan. Although it can be expended with proper care and maintenance. However, eventually, it will expire. If you’ve been using the same battery for several years, and you’re having issues with your car’s power supply then it has a high probability that your car’s battery is dead.

The engine Turns on/off

Without a continuous power supply from the battery, your car’s engine won’t be able to sustain its capacity to keep your car going. In this case, you’ll find yourself in a situation where your engine does start but shuts down immediately. It’s a clear sign of having a dead battery.

Can You Jumpstart a Dead Battery?

Yes, of course, you can jumpstart a dead battery. To do that you’ll need jumper cables and a power source to jumpstart a battery. For power sources, you can either use another car or any other electrical power source, like a generator.

Here and now we’ll show you the process of jump-starting a car with another car:

Step 1: Bring the other car close to the car’s hood where the battery is located.

Step 2: Turn off both the car engine and find the positive (red) and negative (black) leads from the battery.

Step 3: Now take the jumper cables, and you’ll get red and black colored alligator clips on both ends of the cable.

Step 4: Connect one end of the jumper cables to the red connector to the positive side of the dead battery. And leave the black connector over the hood.

Step 5: Now go to the other car and find a good battery and connect both red and black to the positive and negative leads of the battery.

Step 6: Then go back to the dead battery, and connect the black end to the grounded section of your car. It’s to avoid any short circuits while jump-start initiates.

Step-7: After securely connecting both ends from the good battery to the dead one. Its time jump starts your dead battery.

To do that, go to the car with a good battery on it and run it and keep it running for about 2 minutes or more.

Step-8: After 2 minutes, go to the car with a dead battery and see if its starts. If it does then the jump start is successful.

Step-9: Then you will need to take off the negative cable first, then the positive cable, and after that carefully put them on the ground.

Make sure one end doesn’t touch the other. Now you can remove the other end of the jumper cables. That’s it.

Note– if after two minutes of charging doesn’t make your car start then you can charge it a little bit longer.

Should You Replace Your Car’s Dead Battery?

Many of you think that a dead battery is useless and needs replacing, right? Although it’s not wrong all the way, however, as you must have found out that you can jump-start a dead battery very easily with jumper cables and a power source from another car.

In any case, replacing the dead battery becomes essential when even the jump-starting process doesn’t work. So, we recommend giving the jump-starting process a chance, if it doesn’t work then you can replace your dead battery.

Surely it’ll save spending money on a new battery.

You May Also Interested in: How to Jumpstart a Car Without Cables [3 Handy Tricks].

Verdict

After going through our earlier discussions, we hope you’ve found an answer to how to know if the car battery is dead. If you have a dead battery in your car, check any of the mentioned signs. If it’s really dead or about to die, you’re sure to find a match with any of these symptoms.

As a bonus, we’ve also shown you step by step guide on how to jumpstart your dead battery so, that you can reuse the dead battery for as long as possible.

Good luck.