armic777

The title says it all. If I am not going to sell my car, I am going to leave it in my garage for three months. What are the options to keep my battery alive when I come?

I know I can buy the thing that will keep it charged, but I dont have electric outlet in the garage.

Is there a way to turn it off? and then turn it on? I did it on my BMW but asked the dealer to do it for me.

mlandis

If I remember previous threads correctly, the starter battery disconnects from the system. The consumer battery in the trunk will be dead, so you'll need to open the car manually, the seats won't adjust, heater/stereo won't work at first, but the car should start. Within a half hour, the consumer battery should be back online. Drive around a couple of hours to make sure it's recharged.

Admittedly, three months is an awful long time. Anyone up north have a story on that after parking the car for the winter or something?

CA_E55

The problem is also for the battery itself - after 3 months without charge, the battery is pretty much history and will never fully recover.

Tommygunz

I've had that happen before but never had a problem recharging it. Mind you the battery was fairly new and kept it's charge without any other incidence after I recharged it.

armic777

[QUOTE=mlandis;3522299]If I remember previous threads correctly, the starter battery disconnects from the system.

QUOTE]

Does that mean I dont need to disconnect it when I leave? It will do automatically when the car is not started.

Previously, I left my car for one month and the convienience options didnt work cause the rear battery was dead and yes it was recharged after I drove it for like 2 hours. Then It got dead again and got recharged after some driving as well. After that It was no problem.

mlandis

That's my understanding. It'd be nice to have confirmation from someone who's actually done it for 2-3 months, but yeah, if it hadn't drained in the month you had left it, it sounds to me like it should be good for 2 more. (I know this isn't exactly a rock-solid guarantee, but the dealer should be able to be more affirmative.)

percykwong

OK. I have tons of experience with this one.. *lol* I'm always on the road and my cars in NY all seem to need a bit of help. Get a high quality battery trickle charger with a built in maintenance mode. (you can find them online for about $40-50). Hook up the battery and keep her plugged in. Problem solved.

mlandis

Do you know of one that doesn't require an electric outlet? See original post...

percykwong

If you leave your car in the sun, there's a solar version that plugs into the cigarette lighter. That works well.

The link is:http://www.siliconsolar.com/automoti...-chargers.html

it's the battery maintainer. 5.5W

percykwong

If you have an attached garage, running an AC power line into it is really a weekend job (about 3-4 hours), but if it's detached, just mount some solar panels somewhere and have it go to a 12V charging system (or a 12V battery, then to an inverter). Contact me if you need more details. (One of my businesses is a construction company) and I can draw up some simple instructions for you to follow if you decide to go down this road.

mlandis

I don't know why I'm up right now but while I am I remembered a pretty long thread all about this topic -- could be useful as well.

https://mbworld.org/forums/sl-class-...ry-tender.html