Battery question

thatdude305

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I haven't started my car up in about 3 months. Now the battery us dead. Probably just gonna buy a new battery. The question is when you guys let your car sit do you disconnect the battery and if so do you disconnect the negative, positive, or both?
 

testorossa1989

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So this has been covered a few times but in a nutshell mustangs that sit kill batteries. Some are lucky and others aren't. A dead battery WILL kill an alternator if you continously have to jump the car. The best thing to do is get a battery tender. I use a Griots Garage with a hardwire to the battery so when i am done cruising I'll let the car cool down, attach the tender and put a car cover on. It takes all of 40 seconds. I *Try* to drive mine weekly but it's usually every 3 weeks. By then the battery is dead. Tenders guarantee they will charge for when you want to cruise. Best of all, the Griots have continual trickle charge (once full charge is achieved) so that it won't kill your battery once it fully charges constantly sending full power to it. Plus it has a "Loss power" backup in the event of power outages

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testorossa1989

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testorossa1989

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Just disconnect the negative terminal. I have been doing it forever now and have had my batteries last longer than any of them should have.
Could do that too. They make cool terminal ends that attach to the posts (like normal) but have a attachment that the cable goes on, which is held down by wing nuts. So instead of always reaching for a box-end and a ratchet, worrying about cracking terminal ends or stripping/rounding bolts... You just turn the wing nut and safely tuck the cable to the side.

They cost like $4 at Advanced Auto. Best thing I've bought from there

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Goose17

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A second vote for trying to charge it. Put your charger on auto mode and let it go for a handful of hours.

Battery tenders are popular, but I don’t use them. I don’t want to leave anything plugged in and charging while I am out of town for work. I either take the cars for an errand run periodically or hook up my battery charger occasionally when I’m playing in the garage.
 

testorossa1989

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A second vote for trying to charge it. Put your charger on auto mode and let it go for a handful of hours.

Battery tenders are popular, but I don’t use them. I don’t want to leave anything plugged in and charging while I am out of town for work. I either take the cars for an errand run periodically or hook up my battery charger occasionally when I’m playing in the garage.
Okay not only is that how you damage batteries, but it's how you kill alternators as well as risk electrical components. You know the battery charger is exponentially more dangerous than a battery tender right? Some models have "Jump Start" features that have enough power to short out a cars electrical components. Even with a battery out of a car (how i charge a battery when not using tender) I charge it far away from the house.

To each their own.... But your method goes against pretty much every cardinal rule. I'm pretty sure Red Top even mentions it on their website.

1) Running a car on a low battery for errands doesn't "magically" charge a battery up to 100%. It actually puts a huge strain on the alternator and ends up damaging the battery as well as killing alternators. Which cobras are notorious for eating anyways.

2) Constantly charging a battery with a box on "auto" is opposite of what the battery tender does, and just continously sends the power to the battery even after being charged... Which kills batteries and heats them up

3) I Really hope you're removing the battery when you do this.

4) Just because the charge box says (Auto) doesn't necessarily imply "safe charge". Most of these boxes are intended to send a great amount of power to charge a battery from dead, one time. Keyword is one time. Doing it every other week is killing the battery and a great way to have a issue where the car will register it as being charged but you'll constantly experience flickering and power loss because the power draw is brining it below threshold. That's common in trucks and tricky to diagnose.

I'd strongly recommend you Google the difference between Charge Box and Trickle charging since you seem to be using them backwards. Also, while some boxes can trickle charge... Not all of them can turn off. Example, my trickle charge will allow (once charged) to allow the battery to drop to like 97% charge then trickle it back up; opposed to constantly trickling (or charging) a battery with a charge box from 50% which is still harmful to the battery , just not as much (if trickling w/ box) as above practices

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Goose17

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I understand the difference between a tender and a charger @testorossa1989. The difference for me is I am in the garage when using a battery charger. I don’t want any charging happening unattended. I also don’t use a charger very often... just once-in-awhile if a car hasn’t been driven in quite awhile. This has worked for me for a long time... no plans to change.
 

52merc

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I have a NOCO Genius G7200. The NOCO chargers are "smart", have multi-stage charging, an AGM setting, and goes in and out of maintenance (trickle charge) mode as needed. It has a 16 V mode used to recover sulfated cells and a 13.6 V mode for use as a power supply.

It is by far best to fully recharge a dead battery before using it.

I stored my 01 for many years over the winter months without issues. Never charged, trickle charged, or disconnected the battery. Then about 3 years ago I started having a problem with the battery dying if the car was parked for more then several days. I then started using the NOCO. I found the problem to be a bad Mach 460 amp. I no longer have the Mach in the car and no longer have battery draining issues.

BTW, my OE battery lasted 12 years before I had to replace it.
 

KEVINS

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For the past 5 years I've use a Tender on my Optima when not driving the car, always. If the car wasn't being driven I removed the ground to the battery and connected the Tender.... Every night. Doing this method STILL requires me to replace the Optima battery every 2.5 years..AARRGGG. I'm on my third battery in 6 years which is Complete BS...$$$$

ks
 

98 svt

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For the past 5 years I've use a Tender on my Optima when not driving the car, always. If the car wasn't being driven I removed the ground to the battery and connected the Tender.... Every night. Doing this method STILL requires me to replace the Optima battery every 2.5 years..AARRGGG. I'm on my third battery in 6 years which is Complete BS...$$$$

ks


Why go with Optima? The OEM batteries last 10+ years.
 

KEVINS

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Why go with Optima? The OEM batteries last 10+ years.

It's in the trunk with no battery box and the Optimas are sealed good. The battery holder also seems to be made for them and I don't know how another battery will fit.
The battery for the Harley was always on a tender and I only got a two years out of those too. So I'm going to try something different this time and keep the tender off of it unless the battery starts getting low to see if that helps. If not I'm not getting another one.

ks
 

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