Are you worried about the state of your car battery? If your car often won’t start or you worry that you’ll one day be left stranded in the middle of nowhere, unable to start your car, then that’s understandable.
And the easiest way to fix this is to figure out how to tell the age of a car battery. Once you know the car battery age you can make an informed choice about whether you need to get a new one or not and how much this is likely to cost you.
Here’s everything you need to know about how to check the car battery age.
New Car, New Battery
One of the easiest ways to tell your car battery age is if you bought your car new. It might sound obvious but if it was a brand new model when you drove it off the car dealer garage then it will have had a new battery.
You can estimate therefore that the battery will be about the same age as the car If you’ve owned the car for say ten years.
Once you have a new battery be sure to be aware of these common mistakes that can drain your battery and, more importantly, how to avoid them yourself.
Keep Your Receipts
Another really easy to tell your car battery age is to keep hold of the receipts and file them away when you have the battery replaced. If the battery clearly isn’t working and you need to have it fixed then make sure you don’t buy a new battery too early next time you need to replace it.
Of course, if you’re keeping your battery receipt for years or even decades then the chances are the receipt might fade. Instead, you can take a photograph of it and keep it safe.
Many of the latest Fintech banking apps allow you to save receipts of your purchases along with the date you purchased them. This way you will never lose your receipt.
If you are concerned about it then you should save a file of the photograph in a folder in a cloud service like Google Drive, iCloud or Box.Com.
Rememebr that car batteries will soon become vital as Tesla and Lucid hope to transform the electric car market and improve the distance range.
Getting Under the Hood
If you purchased a used car then the chances are you’ll have to be willing to get under the hood to determine the car battery age. To do this you’ll need to pull your car over the one side and lift open the hood to check the car battery age stamp.
The first step is to look for a date sticker. This will often be in the form of the month and year that the car battery was made so 4/16 would indicate April 2016 and 08/99 would indicate August 1999.
If you can’t find this then you’ll be able to investigate closer and see if you can find an engraving instead. The engraving will be several characters long and may need a bit of deciphering. The first two characters are usually a number and a letter that refer to the date it was made. A 6F for example would indicate February 2006 and 7M March 2007, assuming that a battery is unlikely to have been made in the previous decade and still functioning.
Flat Battery
Of course, the most obvious way to determine if a battery has died is if your car doesn’t start. This can be everyone’s worst nightmare especially if you’re in the middle of nowhere at that time.
However, you shouldn’t automatically assume that because the battery won’t start on your car that your battery has totally failed and needs replacing. There are many reasons why a battery might be temporarily flat.
The most common of these is that it’s super cold and you can’t get your engine to start. This doesn’t mean your battery is dead. It just needs a jump start to get it into gear.
Testing Your Battery
The only way to tell for sure if your battery is dead or flat is if you test it or check car battery age. You should aim to have your battery tested every six months even if you have recently bought a new battery or a new car.
A battery test should be available for free from most car mechanics and services like the American Automobile Association (AAA). There are many things that can cause a battery to die and they could be a corroded connection point, the weight of the battery or it wasn’t installed properly in the first place.
If your test does come back negative and your battery is dead leave installing a new one to the experts. You don’t want to find yourself spending hours trying to install it only to find out you’ve done it wrong. Worse still you don’t want to ruin your new battery and have to buy a new one or electrocute yourself.
Remember if you do have a dead battery to dispose of it properly. With the rise of electric cars, the environmental impact of battery disposal is going to become a hot topic in the 2020s.
How to Tell the Age of a Car Battery? Get It Tested
The only real way to tell the car battery age is to get it tested or to check under the hood. You could probably estimate how long you have left if you bought your car new since we can assume it would have had a new battery.
Remember that if your car battery doesn’t start it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s dead and needs replacing. It could just be another problem like a cold day and it needs a jump start.
If you are interested in learning more about how to tell the age of a car battery be sure to check out the rest of our site.
