Car battery in cold weather

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Sue J

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My son has a 2021 Toyota Corolla. He bought it a year ago and since it had the original battery he replaced it in Jan. 2025.

He mostly works from home. We’ve had bitter cold here and he’s finding that with his infrequent, short trips his battery is not always able to start his car. It will start the first time but then can’t start it again after a short trip. I have a charger so twice this week we’ve had to go get him started.

He went back to where he bought the battery, Advance Auto, and got it tested. They said it tested fine and sold him a trickle charger. Sure, nice idea if you park near an electrical outlet, but he lives in an apartment! He hooked up the trickle charger while he was here for a while and I sent him home with my charger.

This just seems like an inappropriate solution.

Anyone have advice for this? From what I remember it’s a Die Hard Gold, or something like that with a 48 month warranty.
 
It sounds bad but it is what happens... short trips far apart are not great on batteries....

It might sound trite, but taking a longer drive every once in awhile might be required.
 
 
Does he have to park outside at his apartment or is there some indoor protection. A previous place I lived in had outdoor parking only. During the winter, I'd take my car for a spin every few days even if only for few miles just to keep the battery fresher than if sitting unused in the cold. Most of the time, this kept the battery from needed a jump.
 
The jump pack is a good idea. When he uses the car, he needs to keep it running at least 15 minutes to keep the battery charged. This will help keep the engine in good shape, burning off condensation inside the engine. Oil and filter need to be changed once a year, regardless of mileage.
 
Check the oil used in the car. Lower viscosity oil makes a huge difference in the starter torque needed to spin the motor in really cold weather. Besides going with a labelled lower viscosity oil, make sure it's high quality fully synthetic. Synthetic oils generally don't thicken as much in cold temperatures. Additionally, if it's really cold, a block heater and/or an oil pan heater do more to ease starting than a trickle charger, but you still need a 120v outlet to use them. Electric battery blankets help as well, but not as much as pre-warming the oil. The advice is worth what you paid for it, but I have 50 years driving experience in Alaska winters.

In extreme cold snaps there is no harm in extended idling a auto in good condition. On the North Slope all the necessary worker's trucks idle continuously for months with infrequent usage. If he drives the auto in extreme cold and will us it again within a few hours, letting it idle is much better mechanically than letting it cool to ambient.
 
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Texas Proud said:
It might sound trite, but taking a longer drive every once in awhile might be required.
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I have a pickup that I rarely use and I'm not interested in taking longer drives, so I just put it in Manual and take my drives with higher RPMs' to make sure the battery get charged up. Luckily, the cruise control even works while in Manual, but of course stop signs, traffic, etc require more effort.
 
I would also check the cca rating of the battery against what the manufacturer recommends. I always try to overshoot by 100 cca on a new battery. The internal resistance of a lead acid battery increases in the extreme cold. Meaning more difficult to charge and more difficult to get power (voltage and current) out. The voltage regulator of a car is temperature compensated, meaning the warmer the regulator or alternator the lower the voltage set point. The alternator produces its own heat and warms pretty quickly. The battery as a large mass absorbs heat, slowly. That partially explains why short trips don't really do anything for the battery in cold climates.

It is odd that after a "short" trip the care is difficult to start. If the engine (oil) is warm, cranking load goes down, warm engines start easier. A trip to buddies across the appt complex is a non event, a 30 min trip one way is really more helpful.

Agree with baba bing.
 
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bada bing said:
Check the oil used in the car. Lower viscosity oil makes a huge difference in the starter torque needed to spin the motor in really cold weather. Besides going with a labelled lower viscosity oil, make sure it's high quality fully synthetic. Synthetic oils generally don't thicken as much in cold temperatures. Additionally, if it's really cold, a block heater and/or an oil pan heater do more to ease starting than a trickle charger, but you still need a 120v outlet to use them. Electric battery blankets help as well, but not as much as pre-warming the oil. The advice is worth what you paid for it, but I have 50 years driving experience in Alaska winters.

In extreme cold snaps there is no harm in extended idling a auto in good condition. On the North Slope all the necessary worker's trucks idle continuously for months with infrequent usage. If he drives the auto in extreme cold and will us it again within a few hours, letting it idle is much better mechanically than letting it cool to ambient.
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But the OP stated the car starts the first time. I'm going to assume that is after sitting on a charger.
 
frank05 said:
Have his charging system tested. Car alternator could be malfunctioning or he could have a loose belt. Starter could also have bad spots.
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This is my first guess too!
 
get a second opinion on the state of the battery. I live in iowa and have had cars sit for week and only moved for snow removal, but a good high cca battery should work for him.
 
Never had any luck with Advance Auto batteries and the way they usually test them is worth exactly what you pay them to do it, which is $0.

If they just checked the voltage across the terminals, that doesn't mean too much. He needs to get the battery load tested and that will give you a better idea of the state of the battery. And if it's bad, get ready for a struggle to get it paid for under warranty. Advance Auto doesn't seem to understand the concept of a load test.

Also, always get a replacement battery with the highest CCA you can find. Good chance Advance Auto sold him an overpriced battery with a low CCA rating, probably lower than the still good OEM Toyota battery you replaced.

You might as well have him return the trickle charger and get his money back on that. He can put that money toward a mini jump pack. A car with a good high quality battery and a charging system that's working as designed shouldn't need to be charged externally.

Also, have him disable the ridiculous auto start/stop feature every time he starts the car. Leaving this feature enabled puts a lot of unnecessary wear on the battery and other components on the car.
 
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freedomatlast said:
Never had any luck with Advance Auto batteries and the way they usually test them is worth exactly what you pay them to do it, which is $0.

If they just checked the voltage across the terminals, that doesn't mean too much. He needs to get the battery load tested and that will give you a better idea of the state of the battery. And if it's bad, get ready for a struggle to get it paid for under warranty.

Also, always get a replacement battery with the highest CCA you can find. Good chance Advance Auto sold him an overpriced battery with a low CCA rating, probably lower than the still good OEM battery you replaced.
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I bought a few replacement batteries from Advance. Only had a problem with one of them and that was after a couple years installed in the car. I took the battery in, they load tested it, and determined the battery was bad. They honored the warranty and gave me a new battery.

In the OPs case, it sounds like either the charging system is bad or there is some after market "something" hooked up that is rapidly drawing down the battery. One thing we don't know is..........the starting attempt after the initial short trip.........is the battery completely dead or just not strong enough to start the car?
 
wrigley said:
In the OPs case, it sounds like either the charging system is bad or there is some after market "something" hooked up that is rapidly drawing down the battery.
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If there was an aftermarket "something" hooked up causing a parasitic draw, why would it start the first time? And if the alternator was bad, he should be seeing the battery light displayed on the dash.
 
I'm with the folks that think something is wrong with the charging system. In the absence of getting that checked, a battery pack jumper, as mentioned, should do the trick. As also mentioned, maybe the battery is woefully under powered (cold cranking amps). A 2021 Corolla shouldn't take much to start and two cold starts in one day with even only a little charging in-between shouldn't be an issue.

Does this happen immediately after a fully charged battery? Or, does this happen after a week of cold starts and very short trips?
 
freedomatlast said:
If there was an aftermarket "something" hooked up causing a parasitic draw, why would it start the first time? And if the alternator was bad, he should be seeing the battery light displayed on the dash.
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I'm guessing because it was being charged over night and that was giving the battery enough "umph" to start the first time. I think there's more to the story.
 
It's really amazing how much current a modern car draws while "off." Back in the day, when we grew up, the draw was zero unless you left the dome light or radio on.

Not today. Things are always drawing power, even stuff you don't think about like the emissions system. The big ones these days are for the keys. The system is always searching for your key fob to come nearby. There are other systems, too many to detail on this post. Let's just say studying parasitic draw will open your eyes to the complexity of a modern vehicle.

Anyway, all I can say is your son is in good company. I'm suffering this problem a bit myself, and in my look at various forums, it is happening everywhere in the brutal winter.
 
wrigley said:
I'm guessing because it was being charged over night and that was giving the battery enough "umph" to start the first time. I think there's more to the story.
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Could be I guess, but OP said there was no way to charge the battery in the apartment complex parking lot. I agree more information is needed.
 
Texas Proud said:
It sounds bad but it is what happens... short trips far apart are not great on batteries....

It might sound trite, but taking a longer drive every once in awhile might be required.
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Agree. Is it "normal?" Kind of sort of. OP says the car sits a few days and only short trips. It is not getting enough charge time, and there is draw during the sitting days.

Agree with the jump pack solution except I will add that it can be hell on the alternator and battery over time and cycles.

A few other things come to mind. Back in the 70s, when we had a lot of winters like this, it was routine for people have trouble starting their big old V8 land boats. It was just the way it was. Sometime in the 80s or so, the engineering on cars improved so much. Starting became easier for the small engines with looser oil. Winters became warmer. We forgot about starting problems.

Fast forward to today's cars during a cold winter. It is different. The computer expects a certain voltage. It will just refuse to even attempt a start and engage the starter. It can seem like things are terribly wrong, when the reality is the battery just got run down a little. There's no in-between anymore for a lot of modern (post 2020) cars. It goes, or it doesn't.
 
Texas Proud said:
Decided to look something up... a trickle charger that has a solar panel and plugs into the lighter plug...

Hmm, does his car have a plug? Guess the next question is if it is working when the car is off... my old car it did not..


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I’ve used the cheap version of solar chargers for 20 years. I use it to keep my riding mower charged over winter and also at car shows. It might be a cheap solution but does not address the root cause.
 
Try another auto parts store like auto zone or O'Reilly's. They should be able to test battery and charging system for free. Jump pack is a good idea for emergencies, but might be a bit of a pain to use every time you want to start the car.

I got this jump pack with inflator when it was on sale for $69.
 
JoeWras said:
It will just refuse to even attempt a start and engage the starter.
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Back in the old days, starting with a weak battery would sometimes draw the voltage so low that the clock would start blinking 12:00. With modern cars with all of the electronics, they probably don't want to deal with all of those things loosing their mind.
 
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