Cold weather is extremely hard on batteries.


People only tend to think about their car battery in the winter. The fact is, summer heat can be even more damaging than winter’s cold temperatures when it comes to car batteries. And yet, few people give batteries a thought during the heat of summer. The cold hard truth is that:

• When the mercury rises, a car battery's strength goes down.
• Extreme heat, like 95° F outside combined with high temperatures under the hood, accelerates corrosion of car batteries.
• Heat causes the water to evaporate out of battery fluid, breaking down the battery grids.

Weak batteries can struggle on for months, turning over the engine while it's easy to start and generate a charge. The real test comes when temperatures drop. A weakened battery has to overcome cold temperatures and a harder-to-crank engine because the cold thickened the engine's oil. The heat's attack lowered the battery's starting power, meaning someone's going to have to call for a jump-start and a replacement battery -- unless you get there first.

 

From my experience, in Arizona, car batteries die every two summers almost like clockwork.