How to Test My Car Battery

Has your car battery been giving you issues? Maybe it’s not allowing your vehicle to start properly or not start at all? If this is the case, it’s more than likely just a problem with your vehicle’s battery, but how are you supposed to know for sure? That’s where we come in!

How to Test Your Car Battery

Here at Park Ave Acura near the Hackensack area, we have a state-of-the-art service center where we can run a diagnostic test on your battery to see what level of charge it’s currently holding. By hooking your battery up to a digital voltmeter, it will allow our professionals to give you an instant reading on what type of condition it’s in. If you’re a do-it-yourselfer, however, once you’ve purchased a voltmeter, you can follow this step-by-step guide to identify your battery quality:

1. First things first, you will want to ensure that your hands, skin, and eyes are protected by any potential battery acid. Before you begin testing the battery, make sure the vehicle is off and all of your vehicle’s lights and amenities are off.
2. Connect the positive (red) voltmeter test lead to your battery’s positive (+) terminal.
3. Next, connect the negative (black) voltmeter test lead to your battery’s negative (-) terminal.
4. If your battery is reading 12.4 or more volts, your battery should be accepting and holding a charge and therefore, should be in a working condition. If the battery is reading less than 12 volts, however, it’s a sign that your it’s not accepting or holding a charge properly.
5. Once you have diagnosed how many volts your battery is reading, always ensure that you remove the negative test lead first. If the leads do not come off easily, a battery terminal puller must be used to remove them. *Do not attempt to use a screwdriver to remove the terminals. It can lead to broken internal connections of the battery post.*
6. At this time, if you have a battery terminal cleaning tool, you can now use it to clean off the battery terminals and posts to ensure that it is free of any acid or corrosion.

Learn More From Our Hackensack Area Acura Dealer

For more information about how to test your car battery or to have our certified technicians take care of it for you, please don’t hesitate to contact us at Park Ave Acura today!