Hello,
We recently had a baby so my other half has not been using her car for a few weeks. This, and perhaps the cold weather, caused the battery to go flat. It was flat enough that the starter would barely turn and the engine would not start but not completely flat: the central locking still worked, no memories were lost (or are they non volatile?).
I connected it to my battery charger and left it for a few hours. When I tried to start the engine, it came to life perfectly.
Do I need to be concerned that:
- this happened in the first place; at the moment I am not worrying because I think it was simply that the car had stood for so many weeks unused.
- that the battery may have been damaged by being discharged? I'm hoping since it wasn't completely flat and that it is working now that everything is ok.
Am I being over confident about either of these?
I've read that some people use trickle chargers to prevent this happening when their vehicles are not used. I've read about accumate, optimate, and the oxford maximiser which I understand are very clever and also de-sulphate (but it would appear that the battery didn't get that bad in this case). I think one of them (accumate?) is for bikes only; what's the difference between a bike battery and a car battery: just the size/capacity?
Do I need on of these or is that overkill? How long do you leave your car standing unused before you connect one of these?
One problem I had was that I had to charge the car on the drive because our garage is so full of junk that we can't get the car in! I see that these manufacturers sell a kit so that you can quickly and conveniently plug the charger into a bumper-mounted socket, rather than have to open the bonnet each time.
What are these kits? Are they just a couple of crocodile clips connected to the battery that run to a socket you drill in the bumper? Is it ok to leave these connected to the battery 24/7? I was just worried about the potential for short circuits if the cover was removed from the battery terminals.
TIA