Hi All. This is my first Corvette. I absolutely love it. But I am in Michigan and have to put her away (November 1st is the magic day). I have a rental unit and of course with no electrical outlet for my battery tender. Do I leave the battery in or do I take the battery out. 2025 Stingray. I was able to put 4200 miles on this year. I signed for it in Feb. 2025 and took her home on the end of March 2025. I have zero complaints and zero troubles so far.

 

Everything but the ER has a lead-acid battery, IIRC. Those tend to not like being left idle (probably worse if it's not climate controlled). I'd see if you can pull the battery and bring it home to put on a trickle charger or something.

 

Pulling the battery and putting it on a battery maintainer would be the safest way.

You could also disconnect the battery but I don't know if it would make it through the winter but you could visit your car periodically to connect a portable jump starter. You could also leave the battery connected but put the car in transport mode to reduce parasitic draw if you are going to charge it periodically.

Some people talked about connecting a portable jump starter through the accessory port in the frunk to keep the battery charged without doing anything else but I don't know how it turned out. A combination of transport mode and connecting a portable jump starter through the accessory port may work well.

 

If it were mine, I would bring the battery inside and connect a trickle charger to it.

 

^^^^^ is probably the best option

 

Get a good battery maintainer, not a trickle charger. No reason to take it out of the car. It will be fine. There's lots of post here about using the CTek devices.

 

Deltran Battery Tender !!

 

You guys didn't read the OP's post. He doesn't have access to power where the car will be parked. He has a battery tender.

 

Doh! That being said, pulling the battery and putting it on a maintainer sounds like the best option. My first winter in upstate NY, I started it up maybe once an month or so. It struggled to start one day. It was fine after but I did buy a Ctek last fall and just let it sit last winter like most people advise. Battery was fine in the spring. Being in Michigan I would be concerned about it sitting all winter. Read up on the panels you need to remove to get to the battery. I broke multiple panel tabs trying to get to my battery the first time.

 

Not sure from the OP’s post but I’ll assume there’s no heat since no power. I would not leave the battery sitting. I know Michigan winters can be BRUTAL with extreme low temps. IIRC batteries can freeze & possibly burst which could be horrible in the car. 😬

 

If you leave it in the car, in a cold garage, it will be totally dead in a few months.
Take it out, leave the frunk open, charge or trickle charge all winter, you will be ready to install and drive when it warms up.

 

[QUOTE=C5racecar;1609173232
Take it out, leave the frunk open, charge or trickle charge all winter, you will be ready to install and drive when it warms up.[/QUOTE]

Most important point yet is to LEAVE THE FRUNK OPEN. .. PITA otherwise. ... (use manual key, to open door, crawl in to pull frunk release) .. It can be done, but why go thru all that.

 

I lived in Grand Rapids for five years and every year used to store a BMW 2002 from November through March, it was in a garage with no heat and I had no problem with it by just charging the battery to 100% and then disconnecting the negative cable. It always recharged fine and actually was it about 80% when I came back in March to use the car.

 

Pull the battery once you park it in the unit, take the battery home for the winter and keep it on a trickle charger. Come spring, just reinstall and start driving. You may need to reindex the windows but minimal hassle.

 

Pulling the battery is easy enough in this car. I would leave the driver's window down, so you can reach in, pull the lever to get back in easily, then cover it up.

 

Depends on your storage environment. Stored in a nice clean tight garage, OK. But I wouldn't want to leave my front not shut tight. There's no way I'd leave a window open! I'm a big proponent of going through the process of opening the door manually and opening the frunk manually so you're familar with it in case you need to do it some time down the road. Which in this case might be winter storage.

 

this

 

As I understand it, trickle chargers are a constant charge that should be disconnected once the battery is fully charged. A maintainer, or smart charger only charges when the battery needs it. Much better for the battery and a "set it and forget it" kind of thing vs a trickle charger.

 

This is (or was) correct. Now it seems folks use the terms interchangeably. In times past, before we had smart chargers, the trickle chargers had no electronic process to recognize a battery state of charge, so it just had low-ish voltage, just enough to push a small amount of current through the battery. And they had no polarity protection etc. But can you even buy one of those anymore? I tried looking up trickle charger and the search results all appeared be battery maintainers.

But you are right.....if you have one of the old "dumb" trickle chargers, you can't leave it connected.

 

I always just remove one lead on the battery and call it good, never had an issue. When spring came, put it back on and start it up. It’s back to life. If you want to remove it, go for it. But it’s not necessary.