That was my experience and may have been part of your 'battery' problem; the old one probably never charged, esp. combined with the poor connection, and may have been okay. Washer or not, I'd replace it (I like a wee bit of grease to prevent corrosion) with a new connector. It's too easy and inexpensive to keep toying around with all the rest.

I had my one and only underdrive and also experienced lousy power steering when trying to parallel park; never again!

The newer the car, the more gee-whiz E-stuff; the higher the draw while sitting, the more need for some kind of battery tender. I've too many stories; trust me, but I will offer one (expensive lesson) caution: two different 'tenders' on a different brand car cooked 2 batteries and a third tender would've cooked a third. I reason that the parasite draw as you call it, is above the threshold of all these tenders, indicating the battery needs charging, constantly, hence the 'cooking'. After a short overnight session I discovered both the new Schumacher, special purpose charger and a new, fully charged battery, were hot; not good. My solution for this long-term storage was to disconnect the car from the battery, leaving the charger connected.

BTW, my Vette has more than a .5VDC difference between direct read battery and the dash, but my battery is behind the pax seat (#2 cable). Also, I expect your Vette can sit for a week or so, without needing 'help', if it gets driven enough to get it recharged.

A tool I recently bought (+ for my car pals) is a accessory-plug-in LED voltage gauge. Twas primarily for a troublesome German luxomobile (no gauges) with electrical problems, but it's proven handy for monitoring or for a quickly checking other 12vdc sources; no cables to unwind and attach anywhere.

Back to you, ensure those big negative connections are clean, uncorroded and secure, especially in an area with salt issues.

 

Red89- Nashville is hot from late April till November and then it's a crap shoot. We vacation on the South Walton beaches a few times a year and love it down there. And it's only a 7 hour drive.

Had to pull the car out of the garage yesterday to put Christmas back in the attic. Started right up after 3 days in the cold garage and charged fine. I left it running in the driveway until engine got to operating temp. Getting a tender soon. Good to have even if I decide to put stock crank pulley on down the road.

 

HandsomeMike, I'm not too alarmed by a .2-volt drop overnight, as the initial 12.7 measurement could've had a surface charge on it. If it continued to drop throughout the day while disconnected from your car, into the low-12s, then there would be more cause for concern. Running the headlights for 30 seconds with the engine off can also remove the surface charge.

If the voltage of the battery itself is in the mid-12s and the alternator output at idle is in the low-12s, then it might not actually be charging at all. I think I mentioned it before in this thread, but we suggest typical alternator output to be in the range of about 13.7-14.7 volts.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

 

That's only about an hour or two from where I live at most.

 

Optima- it charges in the mid 12's at idle in drive. When cruising it is 13.8-14.0 (all readings from the dash obviously). So it is charging, just not as well at idle. What are your thoughts on battery life based on this? Will a tender solve any possible battery life issues?

 

Does the charging while cruising not make up for the not charging at stop lights?

 

I personally think that as long is it is charging at at least 12.5v-12.7v or more at idle in drive then you should be good. Although I am not a battery expert and Optima is.

Also the charging while cruising does make up for it, but if it is charging below what the battery's should be charging at, at a minimum then it will hurt the battery.

Please correct me if I am wrong Optima.

 

It really depends on your driving habits, how often you are sitting at stop lights/stop & go traffic, what other accessories you might be using- stereo, headlights, wipers, air-conditioning, etc... A lot of drag racers run our batteries without any charging systems in their cars, only charging the batteries in between rounds and do fine with it (we recommend YellowTops in those applications). Using a quality battery maintenance device will obviously be better than doing nothing.

The concern you might have is how much strain you are putting on your alternator. When Brady Basner from Powermaster Alternators and I did an experiment where we deeply-discharged my battery and measured temperature and output before and after, we saw numbers that weren't so good for alternator life. Normal operating temperature was 158°F, but after we deeply-discharged the battery and made the same drive, the temperature shot up to 299°F.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

 

There is not a lot of strain at all being as I drive it maybe once a week for about 30 minutes. I drove it two days ago for 25 miles and that was a long drive for me. In the summer I still only drive a day or two a week with one of those days being an all day Friday 30 mile round trip to work. I do plan to autox starting this spring so figure a possible 40 mile round trip plus 6 minutes track time once a month. Accessory use is stereo and heat/AC. Rarely do I drive it at night.