Battery Installation

Testing

Full service fast free drive in battery testing. We'll tell you what is going on under the hood.  Some of the issues that all automotive vehicles face:

Alternator is starting to get weak

• Alternators are supposed to put out >14v DC.  If your vehicle is running and you use a volt meter in DC mode, you should always see >14v. This ensures that the lead battery can charge fast enough to keep up with daily driving and multiple stops/starts.  

Starter is going out, and pulling too much current

• Most car starters for gas vehicles pull between 200-300 real amps when they crank the engine over.  Using an inrush meter we can check the real amps that get pulled during startup.

Short or draw when vehicle is off  

• This occurs when something is using energy when your car is off that isn't supposed to be. There are many possible culprits in this situation. From small circuits with a bad fuse or short, causing a button, control, or light to fail to sunroof leaks and intermittent shorts due to moisture.  We can help check to see if there a draw on the battery that shouldn't be there.  

Draw test on Full battery

• If your battery is fully charged (10+ hours on a charger) we can do a real draw test, using a carbon pile tester on the battery, and see how many total real amps can be pulled out of the battery. If the real current that can be drawn is significantly less than the batteries' rated cranking amps, it's time to be replaced.