How to Take Care of Car Batteries

No matter how well you care for other parts of your care, if you don't treat your car battery correctly, you won't ever get on the road. Luckily, car-battery maintenance is simple, inexpensive and very fast to complete.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Easy

1. Turn off all devices and features in your car (if the battery is still connected to the car), such as interior lights or cigarette lighters. Then use a dedicated battery meter to test the voltage of the battery. If everything is well, the battery should read about 12.5 volts. Anything significantly below means that your battery is undercharged and may have a problem.
2. Clean the top of the battery off with a solution made from a tablespoon of baking soda dissolved into a cup of water. Use a non-metallic brush to get rid of corrosion and build up. Once the top of the car battery is clean, remove the cables of the battery, starting with the negative, and clean the cables and posts.
3. Remove the covers of the battery cells, and make sure that the wells are at least half full with electrolyte fluid. If the fluid is low, top it off with distilled water, and then let the water sit in the battery and mix with the electrolyte before you move on to any other cleaning or driving of the car.
4. Use a special-purpose car battery hydrometer to make sure the electrolyte solution is balanced well enough for proper battery maintenance. Feed the hydrometer's tube into the battery cell (after removing the cell cover) and squeeze the ball to draw fluid into the meter. If you get readings significantly different from the norm of 1.265, then check the temperature of the battery since the meter is calibrated for a battery at 80 degrees F.