I’ve got two cars, the NC garaged and sorn ATM. That gets its battery topped up around every 3 days, I just leave it connected for around 12 hours.
The daily driver, which isn’t ATM, I drove it to Sainsbury’s today for the first time in around 8-9 days, a journey all of 4 miles round trip. So that also gets it’s battery topped up the same as the Mazda.
I also as said previously that car needed a new battery through lack of use, it degraded.
So if you want your batteries to last keep them maintained if you can get them close to a mains supply or maybe suffer the cost of prematurely buying new batteries for them. As said battery charger x1= £25 ish
or new batteries sometime soon X 2 @ £100+ each.
Buy a charger and help the environment??
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I certainly think that it’s a better alternative to running your car engine for the amount of time necessary when you consider that every engine start drains the battery even more and that power has to be replaced before you get to the original charging level.
If the car is on the drive, then use a proper smart charger (NOT a cheap battery-boiling “trickle” charger) with a suitable extension lead, but only if the charger and its plug+extension socket are small enough to live in the car or under the closed bonnet. It’s how I did the Mazda3 yesterday.
Failing that some of the Solar panels have just about enough output each day to overcome the car’s daily dark current losses. I have one that is just about adequate, but it’s no longer on sale, and there are a lot available of hugely varying quality, some better, many a lot worse! Caveat Emptor. But if you can find a good one then it is worth having when there is no mains near the car.
The easy way is to feed its output into the OBDII socket (on most makes of car after 1996.) This has permanent live connections to the battery, (don’t try the accessory socket because with most cars it’s only on with the ignition). The picture shows the pinout on the OBDII connector inside the car by the driver’s right knee.
The tricky bit is quickly finding a reasonably priced bare plug to go into the OBDII socket.
The solar panel can be connected as indicated;
solder +ve (Red wire) from Solar to OBDII plug pin 16. Ideally this wire should include a fuse, say 2A or 5A.
solder -ve (Black wire) from Solar to OBDII plug pin 4 .
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I use a CTEK charger - I’m lucky because I have a garage. During the worst of winter (in past years!) I also used to start the car about once a week & warm it up in the garage, running for about 20 mins, revving after the engine was warm - as an alternative to either leaving it standing or taking it out on snowy, salty roads.
However, a couple of years ago, following about 4 weeks of this practice I started the engine as usual & the Management Light came on. Diagnosed as a faulty EGR valve & quite a large bill…
EGR valve also went on the day I picked up the - then brand new - car, I thought possibly because it had been either standing for a long time or run & not warmed up during the time between leaving the factory & delivery?
Any thoughts please anybody?
I use a Clarke power pack purchased from Machine Mart. Car lives out on the street and I can’t always be bothered to remove the battery and carry it up my long garden to the shed to charge it. Then having to reprogmme the radio and set the clock.
I’ve been fortunate to work all week and haven’t needed my van,so have been using my 2.5.
I needed the power pack on Tuesday morning, but haven’t needed it since
Hi I’m an AA patrol you need to run it every couple of days or the battery will calcify and wont take a charge otherwise buy a trickle charger it will keep it topped up
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Agreed, a very good point. Would need to run for a lot longer to get the oil up to operating temperature…remember…no loading being put on engine when stationary, so takes much longer to warm everything up to where it should be!
In a sheer stroke of luck I won a new ctek smart charger just a few weeks ago, didn’t even recall the competition but didn’t argue when they told me I had won and asked where could they post it to. So as I already had 1 which has been plugged into the NB for well over a decade now and kept its 18 year old original battery in good nick. It’s always plugged in when car is at home.
The new charger is a bit more flash with a lot more lights! So I’ll be rotating both those two around our fleet of 4 cars now I think. Both the MX-5s are Sorned anyway and MOT had just run out on the NA but of course it’s got an extension, which is very handy.
So moral of the story is basically a hearty recommendation for ctek smart chargers. A worthwhile investment and will last you a long while, (although the button on original one is a bit tricky to get to work now) and cheaper in long run than replacement batteries.
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