Urban Legend

iTrader: (5)

Battery Tender for me.

iowackers

iTrader: (2)

I have a maintainer on my car, the lawn mower, and both of the boat batteries. Never had a weak battery. It also helps extend the battery life as it does not let it discharge over the winter every year.

Scott

01WS6A4

So you can hook it up and leave on the car with the battery still hooked up. My car usually sits 2-3 months here in ohio. I also have a redtop battery.

araber89

iTrader: (3)

Ok I leave it in and start it between once every two weeks to once a month. I like starting it and warming it up completely and throwing in a few LIGHT revs. My reason for starting it is: Have you ever let your car sit long enough that rust forms on you rotors. Now think. What out there is telling your rust to not form on your cylinder walls. I let my car run at least 30 minutes and the revs are to just stretch the motor a little. I don't know... I also did this a few weeks after my oil change and I got some oil on my LT headers down by the oil filter. After running it for a while I got some blue smoke in the garage. This tells me if its hot enough to burn the oil off its hot enough to evaporate all the water out of the little places. O and I also start a fire in the stove when I start the car so the garage is like 72* when I start the car. Seems to work for me.

wht01ws6ta

iTrader: (45)

I think rotors and cylinder walls are two different things though.

I've seen rust form on rotors pretty much overnight or at least within a day or two. Your rotors are exposed to water/moisture and if you're from a a place that has snow often, like Ohio, then there is salt from the roads.

If you drive your vehicle long enough to get it heated up and burn off all of the moisture and then park it while it's hot there shouldn't be a problem with rust. Whenever you start your engine you are introducing moisture from the air into it until it gets hot enough to burn all of the moisture off. All that moisture that is being drawn in is often apparant when it drips out of the exhaust pipe within a few minutes of the car being started. Oil analysis labs say before getting an oil sample to always drive your car at least 30 min to burn off water after starting and if you can't drive it and can only let it idle for 30 min not to even start it at all.

Plus your engine is being coated in oil constantly(especially in an LS1 Fbody that likes to suck in oil through the PCV. JMHO

DrkPhx

iTrader: (15)

I try to use a trickle charge on the battery for a couple of hours on Sat and Sun on the really cold days. Battery is still in the car.

South

I have a simple 2 amp/10 amp charger. They claim that it won't over charge. My plan is to keep the battery in the car and attach the charger every couple weeks.

I would prefer to keep the charger attached and running all winter, but I'm not sure if that is a good idea.

I have heard great stuff about the CTEK charger/maintainer, but they are $90 CDN and my charger was $30 (reg. $55) CDN.

I guess I'm posting in case this helps someone and because I'm still trying to figger out if I should return what I have and get something else...

What I have:

What I think I want (i.e. CTEK)