streborx

I wanted to keep my G's battery maintained while out of town for a couple weeks, and I bought an inexpensive battery maintainer, rated at 12 volts and 1 ampere.

Most of these battery maintainers are provided with a set of clip leads (alligator clamps) and a pigtail lead with terminal eyelets, either which connects to the battery maintainer via a 2-terminal inline disconnect. I installed the eyelet leads as shown in the photo below.

In the engine compartment on the passenger side, there's a connection point for jump charging (under the sliding red plastic cover directly in front of the cabin air intake filter). The plastic cover on this composite assembly releases with two tabs and flips up to reveal several fuses and connection points. I attached the +12 (red) charging lead to one of the M8-1.25 studs (requires a nut and washers), and snaked the lead out the side through an existing opening. I connected the ground lead to one of the nearby mounting bolts (that has continuity to the chassis).

The charging cable can be routed out through the front so the hood can be closed if security is an issue. When not in use, the inline disconnect has a plastic cap to cover the terminals, and the short cable is easy to stow out of the way. Note: the maintenance charging cable is fused, and can't be used for jump starting, high current charging or anything other than battery maintenance with the companion charger.

fabbrisd1

Also the 12V Port in rear cargo area works .

For those following this thread - the "Mercedes" charger & maintainer is re-branded CTek 40-206 (CTek version 5.0 - which is a 4Amp charger - but MB misprints "theirs" as 5Amp - not) - the MB rebrand is also packaged with added Ctek 56-263 Cig Plug (which is dang convenient)/

$75 Amazon CTek 40-206


$15 CTek Cig Cable