Car & Commercial
Car and commercial battery engine starter batteries
Replacement motor car and commercial battery pack, rechargeable starter batteries as used in many motorised vehicles at low price's.
The battery on most car and commercial vehicles is normally quietly ignored. it's just there to do a job of starting an engine and its only when it starts to struggle to do this that anybody pays any attention to it. in the years past vehicle drivers would spend a lot more time on checking fluids in the engine bay on a regular basis which would also have included the battery to ensure that the plates were still covered maybe even checking the specific gravity with a hydrometer to get the longest possible life of this then expensive and vital part of the engines ability to work. These days have long since gone. while this is still may be done by more conscientious and experienced road users and perhaps where the batteries are more important such as in marine or large commercial energy storage banks but the available of technically better batteries and different expectations and capabilities of road users means this is a thing of the past.
Many wet battery packs are indeed sealed now days meaning that they cannot be maintained in the same way and can offer a lot more cranking and storage ability than was previous required as vehicles have many more electrics and a much higher required. they are also much heavier so push starting them is not so easy. anyway most people would either have a set of jump leads or know someone who does and as the comparative cost of a new battery is so much less than in the early days its just easier to get a new battery pack.
Still looking after your battery is still important. if you use your car every day and it's a no maintenance battery then you do not need to do anything more. of course if there are long periods when the car is not being used then you should either start her and run for 20 minutes every 4 weeks or put on a charger to overcome the self discharge that does occur with all rechargeable batteries. if you have other electrical drains on the vehicle while its switched off you should be even more vigilant. an alarm or immobiliser might only take a small amount of energy to run but over time it will mount up, you do not want to run the battery down.
Winter is normally the time when you notice if the battery is on its way out. the cold will mean it's much harder for the vehicle to start and will weed out the ones that need replacing. if you run down the battery on one of these occasions it will slowly deteriorate. starter batteries are not designed to deep cycle. they are there to offer a boost of energy over a short period so if you run it all the way down be prepared for a much shorter life span.
