Most of us think of car battery failure in terms of cold winter mornings. You go out to start the car and nothing happens. That clicking sound you hear when you turn the key tells you your battery is dead. But did you know that the cold winter temperatures are probably not the thing that killed it? In all likelihood, your battery is showing signs of summer heat damage.
Understanding how summer heat harms automotive batteries is the first step in protecting yourself against a car that will not start in the dead of winter. By doing a few practical things during the hottest months of the summer, you can avoid that dreaded call to the local garage for an emergency jump start.
Why Summer Is Harder Than Winter
Basic battery chemistry explains why summer heat is harder on batteries than winter cold. Consider your basic lead-acid or absorbed glass mat (AGM) car battery. Both types of batteries rely on precise chemical reactions between lead plates and an electrolyte solution – a reaction that releases stored energy as electricity.
Cold slows down the reaction. That is why batteries can be sluggish when temperatures drop below freezing. Nonetheless, cold isn’t doing the actual damage. Rather, the damage occurs on hot summer afternoons thanks to two phenomena:
- Electrolyte Evaporation – Summer heat causes the water within a battery’s liquid electrolyte to gradually evaporate. When liquid levels drop low enough, the top of the internal lead plates is exposed and permanently damaged.
- Internal Corrosion – Corrosion is a normal part of diminished battery life. High temperatures accelerate it, resulting in lead plates that degrade much faster than they normally would. As the plates degrade, the battery’s ability to hold a charge diminishes.
The worst thing about summer battery damage is that it’s unnoticeable. Hot engines require less power to turn over because oil is less viscous. So a typical car owner can spend all summer starting his car with a degraded battery and never even know it. But come December, he’ll find out in the most inconvenient way.
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How to Protect Your Battery During the Summer
Preventing winter battery problems requires acting while the weather is still warm. Clore Automotive, makers of several brands of professional-grade battery maintainers and chargers, offers the following recommendations:
- Park in the Shade – Park your car in the shade whenever possible. Utilize garages, shaded parking spaces, carports, and so on. Keeping your car out of direct sunlight will reduce heat buildup in the engine bay.
- Clean Battery Terminals – Heat accelerates battery terminal corrosion. So if you see that white, powdery substance building up on your battery, take a few minutes to clean it. A toothbrush and some baking soda solution will do the job nicely.
- Inspect the Clamps – Road vibrations can loosen the clamps that attach your battery to the car’s electrical system. Combined with summer heat, loose clamps can accelerate battery degradation. Check them and, if necessary, tighten them down.
Clore Automotive also recommends coming up with a contingency plan. All car batteries will ultimately fail at some point. And unfortunately, failure tends to occur under low-temperature conditions.
You can reduce the risk of being stranded by getting yourself a consumer-grade jump starter. Also be sure to put your favorite repair garage’s phone number in your contact list. And finally, always carry a winter survival kit in your car – just in case.
Even though battery failures tend to occur during the winter, it is the summer heat that really damages car battery components. Do your best to protect your car and its battery during the hottest months of the year.
