Went to the dealer yesterday and bought a battery charger. Got home and hooked it up. It took several hours for the battery to get to 80% charged. I've had a couple of gremlins in the system - e.g. clock resetting to -/-/-, FM radio absolutely refusing to work (although CD & AM work). I sometimes go 4/5 days without driving and wonder if the charge gets low and screws things up. Anyway, I hooked it up again tonight and it was below 80% charged. Will monitor how long it takes to fully charge.

 

You can have the battery tested by an local garage or the dealer. 4 or 5 days of inactivity will not harm a healthy battery.

 

pa550 brought up a good question. I will be going away to Colorado & Utah skiing for 5-to-6 weeks starting this coming weekend. (Yes like is tough! )

Should I leave my car with a trickle charger attached?

Thanks

 

I've had the thing for about a week now. The first time I used it, it took about 4 hours to reach 80% charge. I left it on overnight and the next mornign it was fully charged. I tried it again yesterday and the battery got to 80% charge in about 45 minutes and was fully charged in about 3 hours.

My suggestion - if you're not going to drive the car for a week or more, get the charger and use it. The electronics are constanly consuming power, even with the car off.

 

If a car less than a year old exhausts it's battery by being parked up for a couple of weeks it has a fault.

1. Duff Battery
2. Duff Alternator
3. Battery Drain.

Dealer problem.

 

I have left my car standing for a month with no problem.
I have also disconnected the battery and left it for a month, no problem on reconnection.
I have also used one of the intelligent switchmode chargers connected while the battery is still connected to just condition the battery if the car has stood for more than a week or so.

So, there are many options all of which I have found to be fine.

 

Watch out for trickle chargers connecting through the cigarette lighter socket. This gets powered off and disconnected after some time, and the charger will not work properly. Either connect directly to the battery terminals, or buy a different type of charger that sends in a higher current (apparently this will prevent the switching off).

 

I charge via the connection point under the hood in the engine bay and get a full charge uisng these points.