Nearly every driver experiences a bad battery at some point. You know the deal: You go to start the car, but the engine barely turns over or doesn’t turn over at all. Sometimes jump-starting the car helps—at least for a little while. In other instances, the battery is too far gone to respond to a jump-start.
Issues such as these are warning signs that your battery may have gone south.
Bad Battery Symptoms
The battery supplies power to your car’s starter motor to crank the engine. Also, the battery powers the vehicle’s electrical system whenever the engine is off. You can learn more by reading this article on how a car battery works.
Car batteries typically only last three to five years before requiring replacement. If you have a bad battery, here are some of the symptoms you may encounter:
Engine Doesn’t Crank or Start
If your engine doesn’t crank or start, you may have a bad battery. In such a scenario, when you turn the ignition key, you’ll either hear a clicking-type noise or no noise at all, indicating a loss of battery power.
Engine Barely Turns Over
A weak battery often results in an engine that cranks slowly and has a hard time starting. Also, in some cases, the engine may turn over a couple of revolutions but the car won’t start.
Dim Lighting
A weak battery usually (but not always) causes both the interior and exterior lights to be dim when the engine is off.
Engine Starts and Stays Running After Getting a Jump-Start
If the engine starts—and stays running for an extended period of time—after being jump-started, you probably have a bad battery. But before jumping to conclusions, you’ll want to make sure the battery wasn’t simply discharged.
The battery can become drained if something (e.g., the headlights) was left on. It’s a good idea to take your car to an auto parts store and have your battery tested. The service is usually free and will give you a definitive answer.
Illuminated Dashboard Lights
In some cases, a bad battery can trigger dashboard warning lights, such as the check engine light and charging system light.
How to Tell If Your Car Battery is Bad
A lot of people blame the battery whenever their car fails to start. But it’s important to note that there are two primary types of no-start conditions: crank-no-start and no-crank-no-start.
In a crank-no-start situation, the engine cranks normally (or faster than normal), but does not start. On the other hand, in a no-crank-no-start scenario, the engine either barely cranks or doesn’t crank at all.
Crank-No-Start
If you’re dealing with a crank-no-start situation, you can rule out the battery altogether. That’s because the battery supplies power to the starter motor to crank the engine. So, if the engine cranks normally, that’s an indication that the battery is okay.
A crank-no-start problem usually indicates an issue with air/fuel delivery, spark delivery, or engine compression.
No-Crank-No-Start
Meanwhile, a no-crank-no-start scenario often indicates a bad battery. But there are other possibilities as well, ranging from loose battery terminals to an internal engine failure. You’ll want to test the battery to be sure it’s to blame.
You can check the battery’s state of charge using a digital multimeter (DMM). To learn more, check out our article on how to test a car battery with a multimeter.
It’s important to realize, however, that the state of charge test does not tell you whether the battery is good or bad—it merely tells you how much of a charge the battery has at that moment.
Determining the actual health of the battery requires a battery load test. A professional can perform one of these battery checks for you using a handheld, digital analyzer. Most auto parts stores will perform a load test free of charge. You can choose to leave the battery in your car for testing, or you can remove it if the vehicle does not start.
Watch these videos to understand how to replace your car battery:
Where to Get a New Battery That Fits Your Vehicle
Ignoring a bad battery never ends well. You’re likely to find yourself stranded in the middle of nowhere with an engine that won’t start, which isn’t just inconvenient but dangerous too. Why not save yourself the trouble by getting a brand-new battery from CarParts.com?
CarParts.com offers a wide selection of automotive batteries, and you can easily browse through them by using our vehicle selector. Just input your vehicle’s year, make, and model, and you’ll find all the batteries that are compatible with your car. You don’t have to worry about long delivery times too. We guarantee fast shipping, so you can expect to receive your order in as fast as two business days.
Don’t wait until your battery dies and leaves you stranded before getting a new one. Check out our catalog of automotive batteries at CarParts.com today.
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If an engine cranks, but the car doesn’t start, the engine could be cranking slower than normal and unable to start, due to a weak battery. To quickly tell if the battery is weak and just how weak, or if there is another problem, simply turning on the headlights will tell you if the battery is good with normal bright lights, or a weakened battery with dim light, or a dead battery with little or no light.
Also, it’s worth noting that almost all major auto parts stores will test your car battery for its “State of Charge” and “State of Health” – or how much life it has remaining. If the battery simply needs a good charge, they will also charge it for free. If the battery needs to be replaced, they will also install a new battery for free – if you buy it there.
You can have your battery tested and replaced (if needed), for free, without ever getting your hands dirty.
Even for a totally competent DIY-mechanic, who wouldn’t think twice about replacing a battery, you have to go to the parts store to buy a new battery. Then, if you take it home to replace it, you still have to make another trip back to the store, to return the old battery, to get your core-charge refund.