If you are going to buy a battery for your car, you may be wondering if the battery you have chosen is the right one for your car.

In this article we are going to give you the basic guidelines so that you can check if a battery works for your car without being an expert in batteries.

To do this, you just have to compare the characteristics of the battery that you are going to buy with the characteristics of the battery that you have installed.

1) Ampere hours and cranking amps

The amp hours (Ah) and the starting capacity (A) are the parameters that define the most important performance of your battery. For that reason, the battery you are going to buy must have, at least, the same amp hours and cranking amps as the battery you currently have installed. If you have more amp hours or more cranking amps, the better.

Now you may be wondering

What are the Ah of a battery?

The amp hours of a battery is the capacity of the battery. It is a parameter that is related to the battery's ability to supply energy over time.

What are the starting A's of a battery?

On the other hand, the cranking amps of the battery could be considered to be the force that could facilitate the battery for cranking.

2) Battery measurements

First of all, we must check that the battery is going to enter the compartment where we are going to install the battery. To do this, the simplest thing is to compare the measurements of the battery that we are going to buy with the measurements of the battery that we currently have installed.

However, on occasions, especially when we replace the original battery in our vehicle, we find that we have enough space to install a larger battery than we have. This is due, among other things, to the fact that manufacturers usually mount a battery that is lower than the one that the car would actually need. And they do it for three main reasons:

- In the first place, for economy, since a lower battery is cheaper and in thousands of cars, it is a significant saving.

- When the car is new, everything is in perfect condition and the vehicle requires less starting power.

- And finally, you have to be realistic: manufacturers know that by installing a lower battery, the battery change will be done earlier.

In these cases, aware that your vehicle needs a larger battery, they leave you adequate space so that you can install that higher-performance battery on your first battery change.

For that reason, it is important to check if there is space to put a higher one. In which case it may be worth making the additional outlay.

It is very important to remember that the dimensions of the battery include all the edges, terminals, handles, etc ... That is, if we have a gap equivalent to or greater than the measurements of the battery, it will enter without interfering with any part of the battery. Battery. Often people take measurements only at the base and then find that the battery they are going to buy has a greater length and width. This is because they have only taken into account the measurements of the base.

3) Positive battery pole

It is very important that the new battery has the positive pole in the same position as the old one. Otherwise, you could connect the battery backwards, which could damage elements of the vehicle. So you must make sure that the polarity of the new battery is the same as that of the old battery.

Take a good look at the location of the positive on both batteries. For this you have to place the two batteries in the same position.

Keep in mind that you always look at the location of the positive pole of the battery, placing you on the side closest to the terminals.

4) Battery technology

As we will explain later, there are basically 3 technologies for car starter batteries: lead / acid or traditional, EFB and AGM.

However, battery technology will only be relevant if your vehicle is only a few years old, has a built-in start-stop system or has a high number of electronic components. If not, you will not have to worry about this section because, in almost all probability, your car has a traditional lead / acid battery and in case you make a mistake and put a battery from another technology (AGM or EFB) , you will not have problems because you will be installing a superior battery.

But why are there so many technologies?

Traditionally, all car batteries were lead / acid because their function was basically limited to starting the vehicle. However, over time the vehicles increasingly demanded a higher consumption of the battery. This was due to two main reasons: the introduction of the start-stop system and the high number of electronic elements in the vehicle.

Therefore, now the batteries were not only used for starting, they also had to be prepared to withstand the high energy consumption required by the vehicle. To respond to this need, two technologies were born: AGM and EFB.

There are also two other technologies: GEL and Lithium, but they are not usually used in traditional vehicles. Gel because it has a low starting capacity and Lithium because it is still an expensive technology to replace a traditional starter battery.

If your vehicle is only a few years old, has many electronic components or a start-stop system, it may have an AGM or EFB battery. If not, you will almost certainly have a traditional lead / acid battery.

We summarize the different technologies:

Lead / acid battery: these are the most common batteries in cars with some age. They are the batteries of a lifetime. They are designed to maximize start-up and do not perform well in charge and discharge cycles.

EFB batteries: these are batteries that are usually used in vehicles with a low demand start-stop system. To put it in some way, they are lead / acid batteries but reinforced to withstand a regular consumption and a greater number of starts.

AGM batteries: these are special batteries. They do not have the electrolyte in a liquid state and are suitable for multiple starts, to withstand longer charge and discharge cycles and could be installed inside the vehicle.

GEL batteries: They are not usually used as starter batteries because they do not have a great starting capacity. However, they perform very well in continuous charge and discharge cycles. A special gel curve charger is required and charging with the vehicle's alternator is not recommended.

Lithium Batteries: There are basically two technologies: Lition-ion (Li-ion) and Lithium-Iron-Phosphate (LiFePo). The former usually have a greater starting capacity compared to the greater cycling of the latter. And the latter are usually more stable and secure.

In vehicles we are going to focus on the 3 most common types of batteries: lead / acid, EFB and AGM.

It is very important that the battery technology to be replaced corresponds to the original battery technology of the vehicle. However, there are certain rules:

A lead / acid battery can be replaced by an EFB battery and an AGM battery. In both cases, we would be improving.
An EFB battery can only be replaced by another EFB battery or an AGM battery (in this second case, we would also be improving)
An AGM battery can only be replaced by another AGM battery.
Following these rules, we can already know in a first step, if the battery we have chosen is suitable for my vehicle. If the battery we are thinking about is EFB but originally our vehicle had an AGM battery, we already know that this battery is not valid because an AGM battery cannot be replaced by an EFB battery.

Now, how do I know what technology a battery is? If it is a replacement battery. That is, if it is not the original battery of your vehicle, you must put the initials EFB or AGM on the battery label. If you do not put anything, it will most likely be a normal battery.

If it is the original battery, it usually comes, but not always. This is because manufacturers do not like to give clues of their product to make it difficult for the competition to access the replacement market. However, as we say, the most normal thing is that the initials EFB or AGM are specified. If it doesn't come check to see if the text Enhanced Flooded Battery for EFB or Absorved Glass Mat or VRLA for AGM appears.

5) Take the battery

The last parameter that we must consider to see if we can install a battery in our car is the catch. That is, where the place where the battery is attached to the vehicle.

If we do not consider this parameter, all the sections seen so far may be correct, but it turns out that we cannot fix the battery to our vehicle, so it would remain loose and would not be of any use to us.

Therefore, we have to make sure that the battery could be fixed to the vehicle and for this we will have to see where the grip or grip of the battery is located on the vehicle.

There are basically two types of vehicle seizures:

- Holding the battery at the bottom: In this case, the battery is fixed to the vehicle by means of a small plate that is screwed to the car.

In the event that the vehicle grip is down, we will need the battery to have a small tab at the bottom where to grip the battery. We will also need a socket wrench to tighten the screw that fixes the flange.

Important: If your car has the battery grip down, confirm that your car battery has a small tab or edge on the bottom of the battery.

- Battery grip on the upper part: In this case the battery grip on the vehicle is fixed through the upper part of the battery, it is very likely that the battery you need has the upper part of the flat battery and that the terminals stick out.