When to use a battery tender?

[champignon]

The above explains why you can't use the old style battery chargers that go through the cigarette lighter. The rest of it is not very important, as evidenced by the fact that I have been charging my three, 1-Series cars directly at the terminals (via the pigtails) for about a year and a half minimum, and never had a problem. In addition, the dealer's lead tech did 2 of the 3 installations of the pigtails when I requested they be installed, and this is where he put them. He's an extremely competent guy, knows these cars inside and out, and he would not have done it this way if there was any real risk.

[captain slowly]

Fun story. Left my car on a battery charger/maintainer hooked up to the terminals under the hood for 3 months while I was away. I come back, and the battery is dead to the point where I can't even jump start it. Check the maintainer with a volt meter, works fine.... anyway, get the car towed out of my garage to bmw, new battery, $500 less in my wallet all is well. Nobody had a clue as to how it managed to die while on a charger/maintainer, but then again, it was the original battery, so 6 years isn't bad I suppose.

[WDE82]

I'm more curious why you had the car towed when it just needed a battery. Uber to parts store. Uber back to car.

[tock172]

Originally Posted by WDE82

I'm more curious why you had the car towed when it just needed a battery. Uber to parts store. Uber back to car.

Battery must be coded to the car, and your run-of-the-mill parts store likely will not carry the battery.

[WDE82]

Aren't they just H6 batteries? Nothing special. And coding can be done after install. You could drive it to the dealer. No harm.

[captain slowly]

Originally Posted by WDE82

I'm more curious why you had the car towed when it just needed a battery. Uber to parts store. Uber back to car.

I wasn't going to put a non BMW battery in the car, as I've seen enough odd electrical issues pop up with non oem batteries. Plus I had no way of coding the battery on my own, so I said f-it, paid the $95 for a flatbed to the dealer and was done with it. I've made peace with the fact that a f'ing battery needs coding to work. At the end of the day, it made it almost 6 years. Granted, the car only has 7000 miles on it now, and it was on a battery tender most of that time.

[Matticus91]

Update - just got back from my trip, car sat for 2.5 weeks and started up like it was run yesterday.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by Matticus91

Update - just got back from my trip, car sat for 2.5 weeks and started up like it was run yesterday.

Nice to see you back and glad your car started up ok. Next time take your laptop so you don't miss any of the excitement.

[Matticus91]

Originally Posted by Esteban

Nice to see you back and glad your car started up ok. Next time take your laptop so you don't miss any of the excitement.

Lol I had my "travel" Surface Pro 2 with me, but there was no hope of it doing any good. Not much internet available on top of Kilimanjaro