Winter car storage and battery maintenance

[Chubbyross]

I’m laying a car up over winter and wonder if any of you have experience with the portable Ctek CS-free battery maintainer. I have no power supply where the car is stored but I’d like to keep the battery maintained for around three months, rather than letting it run completely flat. If the roads go ungritted I may take it out at times. The Ctek unit looks a great solution so I’d be grateful to hear if anyone’s tried it.

And, yes, I know I should be driving it in all conditions before someone jumps in to tell me…

[sparkythecat]

If you're not going to use it for three months, just take the battery off the car, take it indoors, charge it up and store it somewhere that isn't freezing cold. If the battery is in good health, it shouldn't lose a great deal of charge over that period.

[p4cks]

sparkythecat said:

If you're not going to use it for three months, just take the battery off the car, take it indoors, charge it up and store it somewhere that isn't freezing cold. If the battery is in good health, it shouldn't lose a great deal of charge over that period.

Aye, this is the best option given the circumstances

[Chubbyross]

sparkythecat said:

If you're not going to use it for three months, just take the battery off the car, take it indoors, charge it up and store it somewhere that isn't freezing cold. If the battery is in good health, it shouldn't lose a great deal of charge over that period.

Cheers for the response. There’s a possibility I’d use the car if the roads are bone dry and saltless. I wanted to keep the battery in place, hence I was looking at the Ctek unit. It looks a great option for topping up a battery in situ.

[The spinner of plates]

Just disconnect the battery.

[Kswap]

The spinner of plates said:

Just disconnect the battery.

This. Maybe fit one of these so you don’t need any tools in the future.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Heavy-Duty-Battery-Disc...

[fido]

I have portable lithium power packs which I connect up to the battery. It gets swapped around every month. I just don't like the christmas display when the battery is disconnected!

[Chubbyross]

fido said:

I have portable lithium power packs which I connect up to the battery. It gets swapped around every month. I just don't like the christmas display when the battery is disconnected!

That’s the kind of thing I’m after. I can’t be faffing with disconnecting the battery, especially if I decide to take the car out for a quick blast when it’s dry. I want something that I can plug in and top up the battery every few weeks. The Ctek thing looked the best option. Which one do you use?

[fido]

Chubbyross said:

The Ctek thing looked the best option. Which one do you use?

Same I have two CTEK MXS 5.0 - one car is in storage the other one in a garage (powered by a Goal Zero Yeti).

[Chubbyross]

fido said:

Chubbyross said:

The Ctek thing looked the best option. Which one do you use?

Same I have two CTEK MXS 5.0 - one car is in storage the other one in a garage (powered by a Goal Zero Yeti).

I haven’t seen Goal Zero products before. The portable Ctek charger/conditioner seems to be quite a lot cheaper (around £200). Those kind of cordless, portable chargers are perfect for longer term storage and tipping up a charge. I’m just not keen on having to disconnect and reconnect a battery if I want to run the car for an hour or so over the winter.

[RizzoTheRat]

Indoors or outdoors? I have a little solar panel charger that plugs in via the OBD port and I leave sat on the dash if leaving the car for a few months.

[spreadsheet monkey]

sparkythecat said:

If you're not going to use it for three months, just take the battery off the car, take it indoors, charge it up and store it somewhere that isn't freezing cold. If the battery is in good health, it shouldn't lose a great deal of charge over that period.

Assuming the OP is referring to the Porsche 997 in his PH profile garage, wouldn't disconnecting the battery cause a lot of problems?

At the very minimum the ball-ache of setting up the radio/satnav again, plus also any other customisable settings in the car, and maybe upsetting things like the electric seats and the electric window position settings and the alarm/immobiliser.

Or maybe modern Porsches are designed to be laid up for a few months at a time, and disconnecting the battery won't cause any problems at all

[Chubbyross]

spreadsheet monkey said:

sparkythecat said:

If you're not going to use it for three months, just take the battery off the car, take it indoors, charge it up and store it somewhere that isn't freezing cold. If the battery is in good health, it shouldn't lose a great deal of charge over that period.

Assuming the OP is referring to the Porsche 997 in his PH profile garage, wouldn't disconnecting the battery cause a lot of problems?

At the very minimum the ball-ache of setting up the radio/satnav again, plus also any other customisable settings in the car, and maybe upsetting things like the electric seats and the electric window position settings and the alarm/immobiliser.

Or maybe modern Porsches are designed to be laid up for a few months at a time, and disconnecting the battery won't cause any problems at all

It’s actually a 987 Boxster, kept in an underground car park. I’m lucky enough to have access to power where the 997 is parked, so that’s plugged permanently into a standard Ctek conditioner.

The Boxster doesn’t have much in the way of electronic creature comforts but it’s much easier to keep a charge topped up in situ, rather than disconnecting and connecting a battery.

[Chubbyross]

RizzoTheRat said:

Indoors or outdoors? I have a little solar panel charger that plugs in via the OBD port and I leave sat on the dash if leaving the car for a few months.

It’s underground, so no sun unfortunately.

[GreenV8S]

If you don't mind lugging a battery around every few weeks you could connect a second battery which you take away to top up every few weeks. When you reconnect it the two batteries will balance the charge. A resister between them would limit the inrush current as you connect them. A 12W (1 Ohm) bulb would probably be about right.

[23.7]

Chubbyross said:

fido said:

Chubbyross said:

The Ctek thing looked the best option. Which one do you use?

Same I have two CTEK MXS 5.0 - one car is in storage the other one in a garage (powered by a Goal Zero Yeti).

I haven’t seen Goal Zero products before. The portable Ctek charger/conditioner seems to be quite a lot cheaper (around £200). Those kind of cordless, portable chargers are perfect for longer term storage and tipping up a charge. I’m just not keen on having to disconnect and reconnect a battery if I want to run the car for an hour or so over the winter.

As battery tech moves on, jumpstarters the size of fag packets, conditioners that last for months without any input. Why are we still using the old high maintenance stuff?

[CABC]

optimate do a DC battery maintainer. use that with a deep discharge lithium battery and recharge that every few weeks. I can't verify, but somebody on Seloc has used it successfully. this sounds like an ideal solution for modern cars where disconnecting can be a faff or problematic.