I have been milking a five year old battery that has been fully discharged and re-charged many times over the past few years. It hung in there on my Battery Tender until this week. I went out to the car and the Tender has not been able to get it to keep a charge at all.

I even re-charged it again with my big Sears Battery Charger and it worked for one start.

Anyhow, I just bought a new battery and since I don't drive this car that much any more, should I put the Battery Tender on the new battery. Will it degrade the new battery any?

Also - when you guys hook up your Battery Tenders, do you remove the battery cables from the battery terminals?

Having stored many, many batteries for my various boats over many years, my experience with a battery tender is not so good. You might want to pick up an "intelligent" or three stage battery charger as a replacement. It will do a lot better job maintaining the battery.

I have a Guest model 2612, which is a three-stage charger and has the additional advantage of being waterproof. It has paid for itself many times over maintaining my batteries.

I have a small Japlar/Schauer charger, been using it for a year and a half now, works great. I leave the battery cables connected.

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I have one that I have used for about two years, and I love it. it really depends on how much you drive the car. I use one, but I will still drive the car in the cold if the roads are dry. Don't worry about it harming a new battery, as long as it shuts itself off once the battery is completely charged.

I also use a three stage charger. I use a light weight Braille battery and charger. I don't remove the cables but would if I noticed any hint of corrosion.

I read a lot of threads on other forums hailing the "Battery Tender" to be a really great trickle charger. Is that not true?

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Don, The Battery Tender is not a trickle charger per say. It is intelligent like they advertise. My 3 stage is the same way. It will show "Fully Charged" and shut off or maintain a conditioning current depending in what the battery needs.
All the race shops that I hang around at use the BT's.

Since the battery's new, make sure it's fully charges when you put it away, drive the car if possible. Take a voltage reading. Leave it sit for a couple of weeks and take another reading. If it's over 12.5, I wouldn't worry about it. If it's under, put on the Tender for a while.
I'd just check it once a month. I do this with the racecar batteries that I store inside the house over the winter and haven't had a problem, ever.
You can leave the BT on but I'd still unplug it and check the voltage once a month.

The 6 year onl battery in my C4 shows 11.4 after sitting overnite and 14 when shutoff. It's been doing this for 5 years with no problems. Even wuth this old battery, it has to sit for over a month before I have to charge it.

Here is my take... the C4 has a constant current drain of about .25~.50 amps. That's the alarm and other memory functions being powered - CCM/ECM for example.

The alternator is really not engineered to do much more than recharge a battery that has just started a car. Do much more than that with it, the alternator becomes a ticking time bomb.

I like the idea of the smart trickle charger. All you need is a charger that will kick in and repeak the battery at about a 1 amp charging rate. Anymore and you risk boiling the battery... You really don't want to do that... fires can ensue. Bad... very bad...

I drive my 92 everyday, so I don't have this issue. It is currently parked, because we are on vacation, but it should fire right up tomorrow afternoon.

If the car is going to sit for more than a week between regular use, get a tender, otherwise, the alternator will be ok.

As an aside, my Mom has a 98 Acura CL 3.0. Nice little car... however, the battery was about toast. It was tested bad, so I replaced the battery. No biggie, however, the reason? My mom drives about 20 miles a week, TOPS! She starts it, drives 2 or 3 miles, parks it, does her shopping/appt and then reverses the processes and the car is parked again for three or four days. That is brutal on a battery and on an alternator. It now has a new battery.

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Do you have any data on individual circuits on the older cars?

I have vat's disabled (fuse pulled, module removed, starter enable relay removed, etc). Yet my car after about 30 days will have a click no start. Considering I drive it 4 times a year, this is an issue.

-- Joe