OK, I have three Corvettes in storage right now at a local storage facility. I seem to have issues every year with Batteries. I have New (Within In the Last 12 Months) Sears Diehard Gold's in all of my Corvettes, and I currently have the Deltran Battery Tenders hooked to the three in storage as well as the two I have stored here at the house. I am constantly still having issues with batteries going dead, from periods of no use/starting of the cars. Some may go a month or two without being started. I have spent about $110.00 on every battery, plus an average of $60.00 per battery to keep them charged using specifically the Deltran Battery Tenders, and the problems never seem to end.

I understand that batteries and cold do not get a long, but why will the Deltran Battery Tenders Not Maintain the proper charge on any of these batteries. The Three Cars at the storage facility see numerous days during the winter under 32 degrees. The two vettes stored here at the house, although not in a heated garage, it is part of our house, with a bedroom above, so I would say it never gets below 50 in there, yet I still have to jump start the vettes every time I let them sit for over 2-4 weeks.

I am trying to research the CTEK chargers, and I see they have a "Snowflake" mode, but will this mode actually do the job at the storage units, or even at home? I am lost?

Any help/advice would be appreciated, but I am not looking for someone trying to move some chargers, I have already spent the money once, and here I am, still having problems. I am looking for positive answer, and if it involves buying different chargers, I am good with that, but please do not try to push your overstock onto me at this point, I need this problem solved, not more inventory that is as useless as what I have now.

I have also considered pulling all the batteries during the winter and storing the batteries here at the house with the Deltran Chargers on them which would be a little better temperature wise than the storage facility, but then I have to screw around with batteries to start the cars when I want to do that during the winter.

Please Help!

 

Just have a FULL charge on the batteries and than disconnect them.

A battery with NO load will be fine next spring, maybe a tad low.

 

LOL Thats JUST what the owners manual says to do. If your car is going to be stored for an extended period of time,, disconnect the battery!

Couldn't have said it better myself! When you are ready to bring it out in the spring, throw a quick charge on it and hook it back up. Give her a few minutes to idle relearn and your good to go...

No need to worry about keeping a charger going and hurting the battery.

BC

 

So are you guys saying that just disconnecting the battery, and leaving it in the car, in the storage unit, and in the cold is OK on the battery? What I am understanding is that the charger is not keeping up with the cars low level of juice consumption, but the battery will be OK not connected?

 

When the battery is connected and the car is in the SLEEP MODE,, it draws 20-25 milliamps.. That will allow the battery to survive and be able to start the car for a 40-50 day period without issue

When the battery is DISCONNECTED,, it is only effected by the batteries INTERNAL resistance.... If the battery is in good condition,,,,, and is disconnected,, that should NOT effect the charge for a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOONG TIME!


BC
Just disconnect the battery.. Its the simplest solution.

 

All batteries will self-discharge. The rate of self-discharge for lead acid batteries depends on the storage or operating temperature. At a temperature of 80 degrees F. a lead acid battery will self-discharge at a rate of approximately 4% a week. A battery with a 125-amp hour rating would self-discharge at a rate of approximately five amps per week. Keeping this in mind, if a 125 AH battery is stored for four months (16 weeks) winter without being charged, it will loose 80 amps of its 125-amp capacity. It will also have severe sulphation, which causes additional loss of capacity. Keep your batteries charged while not in use!

 

Always charge your battery if storing it for more than a month or so. Disconnected batteries will discharge and freeze. The location of C5 batteries makes a real mess when they start to leak (not to mention the cost of buying new batteries). I store mine for 5 or 6 months a year with a "Battery Tender Plus", and have no problems each spring.