How Often Should You Start Your Car to Keep Your Battery Charged?
Tips & Support
- Sponsor
- OPTIMA Batteries
- Location
- Biloxi, MS
If we learned anything about car batteries and their owners from the COVID-19 lockdown, it's that many modern cars will completely discharge their batteries, if they aren't driven for a few weeks. A few weeks after the lockdown began, there was a spike in car battery demand, as many car owners found their batteries were completely discharged. In many instances, either proactively-using a quality battery maintainer or re-actively using a quality battery charger would've fully-charged those batteries. Instead, many chose to simply replace batteries that were not "bad," but only deeply-discharged.
That's an expensive and often, unnecessary decision. Some may mistakenly believe that periodically starting their car will keep their battery topped off, but that isn't the case either. In fact, the opposite may be true. Periodically starting a vehicle for the sole purpose of maintaining battery voltage may actually result in a net decrease in battery voltage, as the energy generated may not replace the energy that was used during storage and starting.
Vehicle charging systems are designed & intended to maintain a battery that is near a full state of charge, not recover deeply-discharged batteries. Replacement alternators will often say just that on the box. Whenever an alternator is asked to recover a deeply-discharged battery, it ends up generating quite a bit of heat, which can shorten alternator lifespan and turn into an expensive repair bill.
Since the answer to "how often you should start your car to keep your battery charged" is "never," what other options do you have? As we mentioned earlier, if you know your vehicle isn't going to be used for an extended period of time, the best course of action is to keep the battery topped off with a quality battery maintenance device. If that isn't an option, a viable alternative is to fully-charge the battery to at least 12.6 volts and completely disconnect it from the vehicle while it is in storage. The battery will still self-discharge to some degree while in storage, so once you bring it out of storage, fully-recharge it with a battery charger as soon as possible.
That's an expensive and often, unnecessary decision. Some may mistakenly believe that periodically starting their car will keep their battery topped off, but that isn't the case either. In fact, the opposite may be true. Periodically starting a vehicle for the sole purpose of maintaining battery voltage may actually result in a net decrease in battery voltage, as the energy generated may not replace the energy that was used during storage and starting.
Vehicle charging systems are designed & intended to maintain a battery that is near a full state of charge, not recover deeply-discharged batteries. Replacement alternators will often say just that on the box. Whenever an alternator is asked to recover a deeply-discharged battery, it ends up generating quite a bit of heat, which can shorten alternator lifespan and turn into an expensive repair bill.
Since the answer to "how often you should start your car to keep your battery charged" is "never," what other options do you have? As we mentioned earlier, if you know your vehicle isn't going to be used for an extended period of time, the best course of action is to keep the battery topped off with a quality battery maintenance device. If that isn't an option, a viable alternative is to fully-charge the battery to at least 12.6 volts and completely disconnect it from the vehicle while it is in storage. The battery will still self-discharge to some degree while in storage, so once you bring it out of storage, fully-recharge it with a battery charger as soon as possible.