Month: October 2022

“Why does my car battery keep dying?” If you are asking yourself this question, we understand that it can be incredibly frustrating! Without a healthy battery, you’ll be stuck wherever you are. To avoid that hassle, it’s important to make sure your battery remains in good condition, and you can do that by avoiding some of the common causes of a dead battery in modern vehicles.

Let’s dive right into a list of potential causes of a dead battery in your car or truck. Once you know what to watch for, it will be much easier to avoid these problems and keep your battery on track for a long and healthy life.

3 of the Easiest Ways to Kill Your Car Battery

#1 Long periods of inactivity

The battery that serves your vehicle is recharged each time you take a drive. A component in the vehicle called an alternator captures energy and uses it to charge up the battery while you are on the road. Of course, if you don’t hit the road very often, the alternator won’t be doing anything, and the battery will gradually lose its charge. So, if you have a vehicle that doesn’t move often, consider this as a potential reason for battery troubles.

#2 You left something on

One of the classic reasons for a dead car battery is leaving the headlights on after you park and walk away. Those lights will keep pulling from the battery until there isn’t enough energy left to start the engine when you return. Fortunately, this is not as common as it used to be, since modern vehicles usually turn auxiliary equipment off after a period of time.

#3 An old battery

Car batteries are impressively durable, but they do wear out after a while. Getting three years out of a battery is pretty standard, and while you might be able to stretch it out another year or two after that, the performance is going to start to decline pretty quickly. Fortunately, it’s easy enough to have a new battery installed, and you should then have plenty of power for the years ahead.

The Impact of Weather

It’s easy enough to figure out if one of the three points listed above is your problem, but where do you turn if those aren’t the issue? Start by thinking about the weather conditions. Has it been particularly hot or cold where you live? If the temperatures in your area have been extreme, and you park outside most of the time, your battery could be suffering as a result.

For example, if you try to start your car on a very cold morning, those low temperatures could have pulled enough energy out of the battery to prevent it from starting the vehicle successfully. To combat this problem, look into finding indoor parking for your vehicle – at least during the hottest and coldest periods of the year. If your primary concern is heat, then even covered parking—like a carport—can help.

Whether that means cleaning out an existing garage or building a new one, having some indoor parking available goes a long way toward protecting the condition of your battery There are plenty of other nice benefits that come with parking inside, as well, so this one is a win all the way around.

It’s None of the Above: Now What?

As you keep running down the list of what may be leading to your battery troubles, there are a couple of other points to consider. For one, you might be having trouble with your alternator. If you are driving a lot but the alternator isn’t working correctly, the battery won’t be getting recharged as it should.

It’s also possible that the connections for the battery have come loose or corroded. If the connections aren’t firm on the terminal posts at the top of the battery, the transfer of power from the battery to the vehicle and back again will be interrupted. To learn more about how to remove corrosion from your car battery, the Family Handyman has an excellent video available on YouTube that will show you exactly how to get the job done.

American Steel Has You Covered

We hope you found this guide helpful! The next time someone asks, “Why does my car battery keep dying?” you’ll be armed with the knowledge needed to answer that question perfectly. Remember, keeping your battery out of extreme temperature ranges—both hot and cold—is one of the best ways to make sure it keeps working properly for its entire lifespan. On that point, consider turning to American Steel Carports, Inc. to build an insulated garage or stainless steel carport for your property. With a garage serving as a protected parking spot, your car—and its battery—will avoid the worst of the weather throughout the year.

Try our Build & Price tool to explore the possibilities. Special features like windows, doors, skylights, and insulation are also available to add to your project. If you have any questions, contact our team for help. Thanks for stopping by our blog, and we hope to serve you soon!

Adding a tonneau cover to the back of a truck is a popular choice. This flat cover goes over the bed of the truck and keeps everything inside nicely contained. Whether you use your truck for work or play, a tonneau cover can make life on the road more convenient.

One of the benefits you will sometimes hear presented as an argument in favor of tonneau covers is the opportunity to save gas. Could it be true that adding a simple tonneau cover to the back of your truck could cut down on fuel consumption? That certainly would be nice, but let’s look closer to see if it might be true.

If you are serious about caring for your truck, you may also look into adding a carport to your property from American Steel Carports, Inc. Our metal structures are durable, affordable, and easy to customize. Start by exploring our Build & Price tool and don’t hesitate to contact us for answers to your questions!

An Idea with Some Merit

To get right to the point – yes, adding a tonneau cover to your truck can improve gas mileage. With a cover over the bed, the truck will become somewhat more aerodynamic, and as a result, less fuel will be required to cover a given distance. So, if you have been thinking about getting a tonneau cover for your truck and you’d like to benefit from improved fuel consumption, there is reason to be optimistic about this purchase.

This is the point, however, where we need to toss a little bit of cold water on the excitement of this idea. While it does appear to be true that tonneau covers cut down on drag and improve gas mileage, those improvements are likely to be quite minor. The exact results will depend on your truck, the cover you purchase, your driving habits, and more, but you shouldn’t expect to see more than a 2% improvement in fuel economy – and it may be even less than that.

Let’s do a little math to see what that looks like:

If you get a 2% improvement in fuel economy, and your truck currently gets 15 miles per gallon, that would mean getting an extra .3 MPG. So, after adding the cover, you may get something around 15.3 miles per gallon on average. While it’s always nice to use less gas, most people would agree that such savings do not have a significant impact on your fuel spending.

One of Many Benefits

Buying a tonneau cover with the sole purpose of getting better gas mileage is an idea that is dubious, at best. Considering you’ll need to spend at least a couple hundred dollars on the cover, if not significantly more, the very modest fuel savings won’t seem like much in the end. So, should you forget about the idea of buying a cover? Not necessarily. It’s when you look at the bigger picture of what a cover has to offer that this purchase starts to make more sense. In addition to a small improvement in fuel economy, some of the other benefits of buying a cover include –

• Keep things dry. The bed of your truck offers plenty of space to transport items, but those things are normally exposed to the elements. If you need to bring things with you that should be kept dry, an open bed really isn’t going to do the job. With a tonneau cover, you can keep everything nice and dry until you reach your destination.
• Lock it up. An open bed also doesn’t do anything from a security perspective – anyone walking by while your truck is parked can easily see in the bed, and nothing would be stopping them from grabbing what they see. A locking tonneau cover not only puts your stuff out of site, but it also adds a physical barrier that will protect your things. Nothing is perfect in terms of security, of course, but having a locked cover over your bed is significantly safer than leaving it open.
• Enjoy the look. Many people simply like the neat and tidy look of a tonneau cover on a pickup truck. This is in contrast to a traditional canopy, which can be effective from a practical standpoint, but is perhaps not as attractive and is usually more expensive.

Keep Your Truck Covered with American Steel

Should you buy a tonneau cover for the gas mileage benefits alone? Probably not. When you look at everything that a tonneau cover brings to the table, however, it starts to look like an appealing overall package. Thanks for stopping by, and be sure to consider American Steel Carports, Inc. for upcoming projects on your property.