Cold Weather

Tim from Maryland

I had lived in Florida all my life, recently I was forced to move to Maryland for my job. My question relates to cold weather being I have never had to deal with cold weather, and the affects it can have on automobile batteries. I no more and got up here and my car was dragging pretty heavy when i would go to start it. I assumed it was the battery because it worked fine before I left the warm temperatures. I went down to the local auto parts store and purchased a new battery and installed it into my car. Needless to say everything is fine now, and my car starts right up. My question for you guys is: Why do batteries seem to fail more often in cold weather?

Cold Soaked Car

Bestbatterytips.com

Tim,

Did you know that a car engine requires 3 times more power to start in cold weather versus warm weather. The motor oil in a car is a lot thicker in cold weather as opposed to warm weather. Think about it this way, take a bottle of syrup out of the refrigerator and try to pour it. Take the same bottle and warm it up in the microwave then pour it. There is a lot more friction involved in cold weather starts. The engine in your car has to circulate that thick oil when starting your automobile.

A battery in short produces electrons. The chemical reactions inside of a battery take place more slowly when the battery is cold soaked, so the battery produces fewer electrons. Producing fewer electrons results in producing less cranking amps. The starter motor for your engine on your car therefore has less energy to work with when it tries to start the engine, and this causes the engine to also crank slowly. A very common practice for people living in cold weather environments , is using synthetic motor oils. Synthetic motor oils do not thicken up  like traditional motor oils due in cold weather. The result in using synthetic oils is less friction during cold engine starts.

A battery that is nearing the end of its useful life may go unnoticed at first in warm weather. Take that same battery and put it in very cold temperatures and you have a battery that needs replaced.