Could someone explain to me the circumstances under which one would want/need to take out a charger and re-charge the lead-acid battery in his car? My Hanes Manual gives some fairly careful instructions on just how to do this, but says nothing about why. Do I do it whenever I get bored and feel like tinkering with the car?
Now, I understand that the alternator generally does the work of re-charging the battery (and keeping it charged) - at least to the extent that the battery itself can handle. If it’s working properly, it seems that it should handle the job without my help, right?
I do realize that certain types of driving (and use of electical accessories) may result in the battery not being fully recharged from one start to the next - clearly, this could prove to be a problem. But is manually re-charging the battery from time to time considered a good solution?
Most battery checking procedures suggest charging the battery before doing the test (I believe that much of the test is measuring just how much the battery can be charged), but I’m puzzled by the apparent lack of trust in the alternator to take care of this.
Basically, I feel like I’m missing something here. Can somebody pick through my ramblings and supply the missing link?
If this happens then your alternator is failing. A car’s alternator should be able to provide 100% of the car’s electrical requirements, even with everything running (not counting something like a 9 billion watt bass kicker!) The battery is there to crank the starter and that’s it.
The only time you need to charge a battery is when something isn’t right and the battery is being drained or not holding a charge. It is never part of any routine maintenance.
If you constantly make short trips and use a lot of accessories the battery may not have a chance to charge. This could be worse in cold weather when the starter motor works harder and the battery is harder to charge. This probably would not be problem for a modern well designed car, but might be a problem for an older car or one with a failing alternator.
If a car sits for a long period of time the battery may also need to be charged, I belive this is normal. My motorcycle battery needs to be charged every spring.
The only way it makes sense to me is if you have a utility vehicle like a truck or tractor that sits on some remote piece of property, and you only need to use it once every month or so. In that case there is a real possibility that your battery would go dead just from a slow drain and a recharger would be handy.
Don’t put a charger on your battery, unless you have to. A charger can over charge the battery and cause early battery failure. The charging system of the car will adjust for the batteries condition, and not over charge it.
A couple posts talk about a slow drain while the car is sitting idle. There should be no drain, I would think, if there is no corrosion in the connections. Keep your battery connections free of corrosion by using vaseline or one of the manufactured products for that purpose. Eliminate existing corrusion with a wire brush.
In case I wasn’t clear in the OP, my battery is currently just fine (although it’s pushing 4 years old), as is the charging system.
It sounds like the answer is pretty much like what I expected - while everything is working OK, it should never be necessary unless you let it run down.
My usual solution in such cases is jumping it from another vehicle (which I believe means just letting the other car’s alternator charge your battery), but pulling out a gen-u-wine battery charger is also fine.
I don’t have a charger, and can’t see any reason right now to go get one. I guess that was the main motivation behind the question.
