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Just put my 05 and 14 in for their winter naps and hooked up each the Battery Tender. Question - is there any benefit to disconnecting the Tender sporadically throughout the winter? Is having it connected for 5 months + bad for the battery? I mean something like connected for 2 weeks - disconnect for 1 week??
Yes, make sure it is a tender and not a trickle charger as TRF said. Trickle chargers will keep running and damage eventually as said above. The other issue - if you have an AGM battery the tender should have an AGM cycle to accommodate the higher voltage trickle charge. Otherwise, the charger runs and runs and does not get out of charge cycle.
Corvettes do not come from the factory with AGM batteries, but some owners change out to Optima or Oddyssey batteries, both of which are AGM.
The only time I may un-plug the charger is in the spring during thunder storms. Only because I know of a club member whose home took a direct hit from a lightning strike and it fried his car computer. That doesn't happen often, but it is a precaution I take.
As the others have said, they are designed to plug in and forget & I've never had a problem with them. That said, I have a couple of friends that have had motorcycle batteries boiled dry. Don't know if it was a bad tender or what but both of them had relatively new batteries killed over the winter. Most motorcycle batteries are tiny compared to an automotive battery so may be much more sensitive to over charging.
A good battery tender should know the difference between a car battery and a motorcycle battery, a lead acid battery and an AGM battery. all are different batteries with different charging/conditioning requirements. Or, just wing it and throw a conditioner on it.
The only time I may un-plug the charger is in the spring during thunder storms. Only because I know of a club member whose home took a direct hit from a lightning strike and it fried his car computer. That doesn't happen often, but it is a precaution I take.
Just mount a 1 iron on the roof of your garage. Not even God can hit a 1 iron.
The only thing you will want to do is keep an eye on the electrolyte level. Top the battery up with distilled water before putting the car to bed, then check back in a month to see where it is at. You'll soon get a feel for how often to check.
11-13-2018, 03:00 PM
Any Benefit to Disconnecting a Battery Tender?
