Spark Up Your Maintenance Skills For Your Electric Car

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Lots of drivers out there dream of swapping their regular diesel or petrol vehicle for an electric one. After all, we all know just how important it is to do our best to lead environmentally friendly lives these days, and switching to an electrical vehicle is just one thing we can do to make our lives greener. However, there is often just one thing holding some drivers back from going through with the change: they think that cars with batteries require a lot more expensive maintenance compared to regular vehicles. That’s not always the case, though. In fact, if you know what you are doing with your electric car, you should be able to take care of most of the maintenance yourself, which could save you a pretty little penny or two.

Top 5 Electric Car Maintenance Tips 

Ready to get down with some electric car maintenance? Here are all the tips you need.

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Carry Out Regular Tire Checks

No matter whether you have an electrical or a regular vehicle, one of the most important checks you need to carry out on your car on a regular basis is a tire check. If the tires aren’t quite up to standard and have worn down over time, then they could be making your vehicle quite unsafe to drive. That’s because the worn-down tread could make the car prone to skidding whenever you brake. If you take a look at your tires and believe that they do need changing, you should swap one for your spare. You can always visit your local auto mechanic to buy a new spare tire to go in your boot. Don’t put this off as it is a legal requirement to keep a spare tire in your vehicle at all times. After all, you never know when you might need one!

Don’t Drive In Extreme Temperatures

It might be Ok to drive regular cars in fairly extreme temperatures, but that isn’t the case with electric vehicles. Doing so could cause a lot of damage to the battery. This doesn’t apply to all electric cars, though, as some makes and models have their own temperature control systems installed to help protect the battery. However, for most cars, you will need to be mindful of the temperature outside before you use your vehicle. Heat is one of the worst things that a lithium battery can be exposed to, and any excessive exposure can really shorten its lifespan. Similarly, cold weather can also reduce the performance of these kinds of batteries and can prevent them from discharging as well as they should. So, if the weather looks like it is going to be a hot or cold day, you might be better off leaving your electric car and home and using public transport.

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Don’t Leave Your Battery Discharged For Long Periods

If you don’t use your electric car that often, you might be tempted to leave the battery discharged while you aren’t using it. Unfortunately, though, that isn’t a good idea for the maintenance of the car or the battery. If you do discharge the battery fully and don’t leave any juice in it whatsoever, you might find that it damages the battery and renders it completely useless. No amount of fixing it will help to bring it back to life! Thankfully, though, some battery manufacturers make it impossible to completely drain the batter as they leave buffers on it that prevents the car from using up all the juice inside it. But if you know that your car’s battery doesn’t have this mechanism installed, then you might have to be extra careful that you don’t run the battery flat. Otherwise, you might not be able to ever get the car going again!

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Don’t Top The Battery Up Every Day

Conversely, to the point I mentioned above, you should also be careful about topping up the battery too much. Trying to leave the battery at 100% charge all the time is actually bad for the battery and is another factor that can reduce its performance and shorten its lifespan. Of course, if you are about to head out on a very long journey, then it does make sense to top up the battery so that your car will have as much energy as possible to last. However, don’t just top it up if you already have enough juice in the battery, even at just half full. As a matter of fact, charging your battery to 100% every day is a very stressful process for it. As a general rule of thumb, if you don’t need to charge your battery all the up until it is full, then just don’t. Otherwise, you could regret it at a later date when it doesn’t work as well as it should.

Remember To Check The Brakes

Checking the brakes of your vehicle is something that you need to do whether you use an electric car or a regular one. After all, each type of vehicle requires the use of brakes, and these are going to be worn out regardless of the fuel that your car runs on! Generally speaking, you need to get your brakes checked out every 20,000 miles that your car does. Don’t worry; you don’t need to always do this at your nearest mechanic’s garage – there are some simple tests you can do at home. One is to gentle start your car and drive it a couple of meters before pressing the brakes. You should then be able to feel whether the brakes need any work doing to them. In some cases, cars need their brakes completely replacing every 40,000 miles, but that will differ between makes and models.

Hopefully, this blog post has told you everything you need to know about looking after and maintaining your electric car. Of course, these are just some of the more general tips for the electric car maintenance that will be useful for you; you might also want to research into this further to find out what else you can do to keep your vehicle in tip-top condition.