How to Test a Car Battery (DIY)

Introduction

Car batteries are essential for vehicle operation, but like everything else, batteries don’t last forever. They have a limited life span, usually no more than five years under the most favorable conditions. Unfortunately, one of the most common ways of finding out your battery is dead is when you try to fire it up and your car won’t start or turns over very weakly.

When this happens, it’s important to determine if the battery is just drained and needs to be recharged, or if it’s too weak to hold a charge. Sometimes if they’re low or dead, like if you left the lights on, you may just need to charge the battery.  But when they lose their ability to hold a charge, they need replacement. So how do you tell?

Proper battery testing makes it easier to figure out what’s wrong with your battery. Learn how to do a detailed test of your car battery with a dedicated battery tester. You could use a multimeter, but you won’t get as much information about what’s going on inside the battery.

We recommend this Topdon BT100 battery tester because it can not only check the charge on your battery, it can test the overall health of the batter, as well as run cranking tests, charging tests and provide other information you’ll appreciate having available.

Buy Now

Testing your battery is easy enough. Here’s how to do it.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7p63MoqOyoJGjsbq5wKdlnKedZL2zu8memq1nmKTEbsDOZqueq6Rirm6vwKtkm5mkqbKzxY4%3D