Battery Voltage after a few days?

[Flot]

I drive my 135i once or twice a week and honestly many of my trips are very short ones. (and I maintain the car accordingly) Never had any issues with starting, no signs of low battery etc, and in fact replaced the battery (and re-coded) with the largest conventional cell battery about 7 months ago when I bought the car used.

Recently it sat for a week or so, I put it through 20 mins of highway driving, and then it sat another 4-5 days.

I was going to be doing some re-flashing and at the last minute threw the charger on the car for good measure. It's a smart charger and after its quick analysis it read the battery at 53% (which I imagine would equate to 11.2-12v) and started charging at full capacity.

I was VERY surprised. I know the car allegedly does some charging trickery but I will make a point to start checking the voltage after it sits for 1-3-5 days. Anyone else noticed unusually low battery readouts?

[fun2drv]

Use a battery tender in order to keep your battery in top shape. It makes a huge difference in the life of your battery for a car that is not driven on a regular basis.

[Flot]

Originally Posted by fun2drv

Use a battery tender in order to keep your battery in top shape. It makes a huge difference in the life of your battery for a car that is not driven on a regular basis.

I've had 2nd (or even 3rd) cars for the last 10 years and never had an issue with battery voltage assuming they get driven at least once a week on average. Have other toys that I have to keep an eye on though. Anyway, I'll top off the charge today and monitor actual battery voltage for a while to see what's what.

[New21er]

Same here. If I know I won't be driving the car for a couple days I plug in the Battery Tender.