Days are getting shorter, temperatures are falling - it's time to give your car's battery a pre-winter once over.
Tiger Wheels' Joe du Plooy, who sent Wheels24 the "check it!" suggestion, said: "Much like humans, car batteries aren't especially enthusiastic about cold mornings. The exercise is often accompanied by much groaning and, if you're lucky after a few failed attempts, a running engine.
"If you've ever been stranded with a dead car battery you'll need no encouragement to have your battery tested.
ALLOW THE RECHARGE
It bears mentioning that even a relatively new car battery can die prematurely if you don't maintain it. Here are some guidelines for how...
• If your car is to be parked for some time disconnect the battery and attach it to a trickle charger or arrange to have someone come over regularly to start and run your car for several minutes at a time.
• Some vehicle tracking devices draw power from your car battery and will drain it completely after time.
• Avoid short trips. Those of less than 20 minutes don't give your battery enough charge time to recover from the effort of starting the engine.
• Garage your car to protect the battery from extreme cold which shortens its life.