Check, Test, and Replace a bad car Battery

One of the most important parts of your car to have working 110% of the time is your battery. You can prepare for winter all you want, but when a battery fails during the sub zero days usually there’s no warning. Here’s an article about how to check and replace your car battery.

Here is a 2000 Ford Windstar with a 3.0 liter V-6. The customer concerns were… “when going to start the vehicle first thing in the morning, the car just clicks”. “Another strange thing that happened was the interior lights would turn on and off by itself”.

Safety First

When working around car batteries, always take precautions with handling batteries. Wear eye protection and gloves to prevent any debris or acid from getting on your hands or being rubbed into your eyes!!

Needed parts and tools for the job:

You will need the following new parts and tools to perform this repair;

• 1-Battery
• 1-Digital volt and amp meter
• 1-10mm wrench
• 1-1/4” ratchet with 5/16” socket
• 1-pair of safety glasses
• 1-pair of gloves

Price Comparison – How much you can save

Repair shop pricing
Parts-approx.$100-$120
Labor to diagnose and replace battery 1 hour($80)
Total cost-$180-$200 plus tax

Do it yourself
Parts-$50-$90 (from your local parts store)
Estimate time to repair, approx 30 min.
Total cost-$50-$90 plus tax

Verify the Customer Concern

Separate of turning the key to crank the engine, the best pre-test to perform is with a digital volt meter.

Locate the old battery and check the battery terminal ends for corrosion. (If corrosion is present, you’ll need to clean before testing)

Note:

Refer to battery maintenance for tips and advise on how to clean a battery .

Here’s an affordable digital volt and amp meter you can purchase for around $59 from Sears.

Turn the meter knob to the DC volt setting. Connect the red meter lead to the positive or + terminal of the battery.

Connect the black meter lead to the negative or – terminal of the battery. Here we show 3.1 volts in a battery that should show 12.5 volts.

This battery is more than 4 years old, so it’s not worth trying to charge just to see if the voltage comes up.

Note: 90% of all car batteries fail within 5 years.

Remove the old battery and replace with an equal if not higher strength battery.

Locate the Cold Cranking Amp rating on the battery. (CCA)

This one is a 550 CCA battery.

Install the new battery into the battery tray.