Push the hatch down slowly until you hear it "click". It won't be fully latched but it will turn the lights off and leave a thin gap for the wire. I was doing that for the first year until I attached the Battery tender pigtail on the positive pole of the fuse box and the ground wire on the large frame bolt below the alternator. I leave the hood down but unlatched with the wire to the Battery Tender hanging over the fender, even with the indoor cover on the car. Best solution I've found because the pigtail unplugs with a quick disconnect connector to the Battery Tender. This pigtail comes with the two Battery Tenders I've purchased.
Just me $.02

 

Hi Tyler,
i am confused about your answer on the charger. Isn’t your battery in the rear of your car and yet sounds like you are charging with something under the hood? My battery is behind the passengers seat to the back wall but I also have a convertible. I have always kept my corvettes on a battery tender. Mine really sit a lot. Like my corvette now is a 2015 and has 475 miles on it. Did I understand you are using 2 chargers? I did find out the hard way about battery post. Mine have always just had a negative and positive post I thought until the last time I got in it. It was dead. In my garage. I called roadside assistance and just happened one of the men had another 2015 that had his charger like mine.
But there was another post past the the first negative closer to the end of the top of the battery like the other post. I had never noticed it. I had my charger on the one by the positive
And of course it was dead. I felt like a fool and was really upset. Did you know you have 2 negatives and one positive? Only the negative you use is the one farther away and almost in the dark.! It was a wonder I didn’t Burn it up.!
I also like your words gently pushed the hatch down but not not all the way. All I know are the ones with the clips to the post.

 

agreed when I found that out it was neat and it worked

 

On my 2017, I just plug it in and lower the rear hatch down slowly until it touches the latch. Leaves plenty space for the cord, even when I cover the car.
Can not lower like Tyler Guy said because if it clicks it automatically draws shut.

 

I have a question since we are talking about Battery Tenders. Can you hook the tender up to the posts in the engine bay to maintain stand by power to the electronics as you change out the battery?

 

Unfortunately, no; without the battery connected the circuit is incomplete.

 

Beverly K. McCutcheon - There is also a remote positive battery terminal under the hood on the left side of the fuse box. You can attach the positive wire on the Battery Tender pigtail that comes with the BT. The negative or ground wire can be attached to the frame bolt below the alternator and can be easily seen if you look for the bright silver bolt in that lower area. I haven't found any other place that is in close proximity to the fuse box for a grounding spot. "Jeffer" said he couldn't get his rear hatch to latch as I recommended, but I have done this on two different C7s without any problem. You MUST push the hatch down slowly with little downward force when it touches the latching mechanism until you feel and hear a "click", then it is partially latched enough to turn off the lights and it leaves a gap by the weatherstripping to allow the Battery Tender cord to slide un-pinched through that gap. It is still tight enough that rodents can't get into the car during long winter storage periods. The only issue I found with the rear plug-in charging was the Battery Tender plug eventually quit working and I had to buy another one to continue using that terminal for charging. I assume that the continuous use of plugging and unplugging the charger into that charging spot in the rear hatch area eventually wore out the plug-in device on the Battery Tender. I'm not a fan of the rear battery location, but GM gives us two areas on the C7 to attach a charger and in my opinion, the under-hood spot is the best and by far the safest/easiest to use.

TylerGuy

 

The official Corvette charger is just a CTEK. If your car didnt come with it, dont spend extra $ just for a ligo. Dont worry about running the wire through the hatch gasket and close the hatch, it will not harm it.

 

LOL, I read your post and thought "that guy has a good idea". I have a couple of cars and the C7 sits with the factory battery charger hooked up when it is not being used. Today was nice and I decided to drive it to work, (I too am 71 and still self employed), I jumped in, fired it up and in the process of backing out of the garage I heard a crack/smash and realized that I had not unhooked the battery tender. Good ideas only work if you actually use them.

 

I just let the lid rest slightly open, and the light goes out after a bit. And since it's charging while the small light is on there's never been an issue. And if you use this method the car will let you know the trunk lid is open if you try to use the car with the charger plugged in, saving you the headache involved with backing out your garage while cord is attached to outlet! Ask me how I know! And sometimes my car will sit a few days on the tender so a few minutes of that light being on is meaningless.

 

[QUOTE=mbaessler;1599223871]I have a question since we are talking about Battery Tenders. Can you hook the tender up to the posts in the engine bay to maintain stand by power to the electronics as you change out the battery?[/QUOTE

Hi, I am not sure where you are talking about hooking post under the hood to run to change your battery out. .i have a 2015 Z06 and my battery is in the trunk. Why would you need to hook up anything to change your battery out? Is you car so dead you can’t change the battery? That is worse. Just change out the old battery immediately and get the new one back in there.it should bring the! car back to life. I would leave it alone for awhile until everything resets. I am no professional but that is what I would do. A new battery should be fully charged and ready to go.!

 

There is technically a little spot they say is for the wire, I just lay my hatch on it without closing it all the way. Lights go out in a few minutes

 

[QUOTE=Bevsvet;1599269268]Bevsvet: Under the hood there is a post and a nut to use when you need to jump the car. My battery is fine. I just wanted to know when you change out the battery can you use the Battery Tender to maintain standby power to all the electronics. That way you do not lose any of your settings or the window indexing. Earlier someone mentioned to me is once you take the battery out you break the circuit. So what I asked will not work.

 

My battery tender came with a soft carry pouch. When charging I just place the empty pouch over the shifter.

 

I just slam the hatch down on the wire. The weather seal has enough give in it to accommodate the 18 ga. wires that connect the plug to the charger itself. I make sure the charger is OUTSIDE of the car.

WRT a reminder to unplugged the thing, those all sound like good ideas. I backed out of the garage with mine still plugged in once. It didn't hurt anything because I had enough slack in my extension cord to notice it, but not nearly enough to make it to the hardware store. When you get older, you forget little stuff - it just seems to go with the territory. I'm just happy I don't leave the house without my pants on, (I'm sure its been done, followed by admission to the assisted living facility, LOL).

When I went to Road America last summer to see the IMSA Weathertech races and the new C8, I woke up in the hotel with the admission wristbands on and did not immediately realize where I was. The only thing I could think of was that the old lady finally had enough of my $hit and put me in the old folks home down the street. I had too much beer the previous day to remember that I was actually in Wisconsin on an "Excellent Adventure".

 

I have driven away without removing my charger, so I made up this sign.
You print this sign out and have it laminated so it's permanent.
Consider it my Christmas Gift to the old, stupid and forgetful.

 

Ditto that.

 

Know this is a very old post, however just want to thank you thank you StevieK and CRABBYJ for your post and information.

Have a 1.5 car garage, where the Corvette fits nicely but very tight on the shorter side, need to back the Corvette into the shorter side in order to get in and out of the car. Therefore the manual release for the trunk is not accessible, during winter storage I use he battery tender and leave the trunk ajar. This week found that the battery had dropped so low that I couldn't get into the car using the remote, thankfully I leave the windows open during the summer. Couldn't reach the battery, so did a search on the forum which brought me to this post. Followed the photos and instructions and was able to connect my battery charger as shown and voilà I have power to open the trunk.

Just changed the battery about a year ago on my 2015, so hoping that the battery charger will be able to bring back the battery, will probably take it to my mechanic to perform a battery test to assess the health of the battery.

Now... I'm sure you all are wondering how the battery was drained in the first place.
I upgraded my HMI module about 2 years ago to get auto play and android auto along with navigation, well started getting no GPS in NAV mode so checked all the connections to the HMI and took it out to inspect the GPS connection didn't see an issue with the connection, so I put it back. However when I put it back I bent some pins on the J1 connector on the HMI, shorting out two pins, should of figured out that something was wrong when I couldn't start the car, ran out of time so left the module connected. Obviously this caused the battery to be drained and hope I do not have any other issues, apart from damaging the HMI module.

Have no idea how I bent the pins, did learn that the J1 connector on the HMI is needed to start the car.

 

If the car sits for about a week or longer the computer and electronics can drain the battery substantially. If mine sits more than a couple days plug the charger in the trunk area and close the hatch. Your battery will last much longer too since draining it down and bringing it back up is not good for the battery.

 

I'm sure that CTEK makes a good battery tender too, but i have been using Battery Tender Jr's for years, even leaving them on for 4 months continuous in the winter. I have never had an issue, so I'm not sure how I improve on that.