automotive batteries

Do you use a battery tender on your cars? If not I'd do that before a fancy lightweight battery. A quality traditional lead acid battery should easily last 5 yrs with a quality tender.

 

c-tek makes some of the best chargers/tenders,and theyre cheap $50-100

 

I use battery tenders on all my cars that do not come with a factory charger.

Several years ago I used Odesey battery on two vehicles. The batteries last almost 12 years and have very high cranking power.

The best part is they lose their charge very slowly over time. I had a 65 Cobra ( a kit of course) with a high compression engine without compression release. I also had no electrical outlet for a charger where I stored the car. I think it would hold a ptent charge for close to a year.

They are a little more expensive, and require a high wattage charger. Most modern cars can handle the charging needs of these batteries.

Personally I just use battery Tenders but it may provide an alternative.

As I think on it I use an Odesey on my 125 hp chopper. It would chew up normal batteries. This battery worked perfectly. I may have spelled Odesey wrong.

PS I checked their web site I did spell it wrong. Close enough for a Google search



best

Lee

 

I use C-teks on all my cars/trucks that sit. My 98 M3 is still on the original battery!

 

On the smaller CTEK chargers (max charge is ~7 A) it has an internal shutoff after 4 hours. No big deal for someone monitoring the recharge, just unplug and plug it back in to restart. But if you heavily discharged a typical 70 amp-hour auto battery and hooked it up to the charger and then forgot about it, you might only get 28-ish amp-hours back in and the battery will sit (and die) in a low state of charge.

 

Mitchell, get some C-TEK chargers. You can get 4 of them for the price of that foo foo battery. The C-TEK maintained batteries will last a long time. Even those fancy batteries still require maintenance.

 

+1 I just ordered my 16th CTEK for $39.95 shipped from eBay. Have these on everything from cars to tractors. Never a failure. It is true that batteries still have a finite life though, and I have lost an ATV battery to old age while on a CTEK....

 

So I share a warehouse/garage with two other guys. Total of 12 vehicles stored--all on C-TEKs. Never a complaint. Yes, batteries die. And yes, we occasionally forget to turn them on. But they rock.