Leaving battery tender connected while on vacation?

If a car hasn't been "monkeyed" with (i.e. radar detectors installed, aftermarket accessories etc.), then leaving it on tender all the time may not be necessary depending on your climate. If you use the immobilizer, I would argue the car needs to be on a tender, especially older cars (2005-2015). The problem comes when you buy a used car, you never know what the prior owner did to the car and the expertise of the tech that did work on the car. In my opinion, the downside of leaving it on tender outweighs the downside of leaving it off tender. But fear of fire damage is practically non-existent. Something else is going on if the car catches fire, such as mice eating the soy contained in the wiring jackets and a sudden voltage spike through the power company overriding the fuse in the charger.

I have a triple protected voltage/ampage protection on my home due to the sensitive nature of today's modern high efficiency hvac systems and refrigerators. A lightning strike would have to bypass 3 different isobars to get to my car. It's not likely. If these chargers were truly a danger, they wouldn't be in business very long because of all the different variables with receiving and transmitting clean power.

 

I’ve never been comfortable leaving a tender or trickle charger on any battery and leaving the property. Two years ago I had the battery out of our newer suburban sitting on the workbench in the shop. Decided I’d place it on the “smart” charger for a half hour just to bring it up to full charge as the vehicle had been sitting for six months. Walked back in the shop to find battery acid everywhere. Had this been in the vehicle? I would’ve been paying for a new paint job on the suburban and our Land Rover sitting next to it. Still not clear what happened to cause this. Bottom line is .. electronics do fail, you just have to be ok with the amount you’re willing to lose.

 

In your case, there was a mismatch between battery and charger. Modern batteries often have small, embedded electronic circuits or controllers that manage their charging, discharging, and overall operation as do the chargers.

 

Could also be that something failed in the battery. This smart charger was placed on my Ferrari, wife’s BMW, Land Rover, Honda, 4 x 4, etc., etc. and never an issue. Problem should’ve been detected and shut the charger off. I guess it’s all going to be OK.. until the day it isn’t.

 

I had the same thing happen about 20 years ago, with an Optima battery and a Schumacher charger that supposedly had smart charging functionality - but that battery definitely didn't have any circuits in it.

Unfortunately, I unplugged the car from the charger and drove about a mile before the battery exploded. It did make a mess, but mostly just under the hood.

Yes, 99.9% of the time it will be fine. It's the nature of paranoia that we focus on the .1%!

 

If you're that concerned, see if there's a monitored storage facility nearby. Not just a garage at a self storage place...A car specific facility.
Got a friend w a garage?

 

What was the Fire Department report on the cause? They investiagate the cause of all fires, and if a "couple million bucks" went up in flames, they would definitely investigate. Your buddy can ask for a report. For all he knows it was faulty or frayed wiring, circuit overload, power surge, improper application, etc. Or maybe he had a defective tender. The Fire Department will be able to tell him. If it was faulty wiring he needs to know that before it puts more cars in the facility.

 

Interesting reading the different opinions on this subject. Based on my experience, here's mine:

I try to take my 2005 F430 out for a good drive at least once or twice a week, year-round, which can be hard to do because of the weather here. When it's in the garage it's always connected (even when I'm away) to the battery tender, a NOCO Genius G3500. This has worked well for over 5 years. Also worked well on the 355 I had for almost 9 years.

You should do what you feel comfortable with.

 

This.^^^

 

For sure. It was absolutely the charger/battery and not the wiring of the building.

He will be getting the report plus I know the insurance company will be looking for it and probably doing their own investigation.

But based on the security camera footage it's the charger/battery.

 

I have 16 CTEKs in service at any one time...

 

The 328 has a battery quick disconnect so I do that after it is fully charged from a drive. Sometimes it has been 3 months in between drives and it starts up fine and the battery life has been good.
What other Ferraris have battery quick disconnects?

 

I should also add that it helps that I am in a warm climate year round

 

Hi, we are a new sponsor on Ferrari Chat, our brand is Antigravity Batteries... we manufacture Lithium Batteries, but we also recently developed a new Battery Charger... I bring that up because we actually went through developement on this particular product, and we instituted new things not available in a Charger before so we had to learn alot determine profiles we wanted and so on.

So for the original poster and others, modern smart chargers are even better than the previous version of smart chargers and are micro-chip controlled, and are programmed for very high degrees of safety, and must pass certain testing to get specific certificates. With that being said, most all Modern name brands of Chargers/Maintainers are designed to be left on full time. You should be able to read that in your Users Manual to confirm it specifically with your brand. But the CTEKs, Optimates, and others can be left on full time and as many of your know becuase many Ferraris have very high parastic draw on the batteries it is a good idea to maintain that charge on the Battery.

Also I am not saying you SHOULD do this if you don't feel comfortable, but in general the chargers of the last 5 year years are modifying the charging profiles to be very safe these days, and intended to be left on continually. But just double check your users manual for your particular brand.

If you do have any questions about Chargers we are actually professionals in that are, and Lithium and other batteries so feel free to ask.

 

Welcome, and thanks for your kind offer. Here's a pair:

1). How often, and under what conditions, do you suggest that a typical AGM battery be "Reconditioned" thru the use of your common CTEK charger which is equipped with this capability?

2). And, when doing the above, is it OK to do so with the battery installed in the car and thus fully connected to the car's electrical system? Or, to be safe from potential pulsation damage to the car's computer / electronics, should the reconditioning battery be disconnected from the car first and thus standing "naked" (so to speak)?

 

Thats a great question, I've had a few on Ferrari Chat so far, in our short time here.

1) So the fact is you will rarely if ever need to use the Recondition Mode on your battery if you have not had any very deep or longer term discharges on the battery. All the different Charger Manufacturers (of which we are one now) will have the special mode called by several names depending on the brand... some call it Recondition Mode, others call it Recovery Mode, or Repair Mode, but they are all the same. It is the Charger put into a "Special Mode" to remove Sulfates that can accumulate on Lead/Acid Plates inside the Battery, but these Sulfates only develop on deeply overdischarged batteries, or batteries that have been sitting a long time in car in storage and the battery is deeply overdischarge. This doesn't happen all the much for persons taking care of their battery. So if you battery is maintained in a relatively decent manner there will be no need to use it. It is also accomplished by higher voltage pulses sent to the battery which might not be the best thing for a healty battery. This only happens in LEAD/ACID battery and is does not happen in Lithium Battery so never use this mode with lithium batteries.

2)I peronsonally would not run recondition on a battery connected to a car due to those higher voltage pulses some some chargers maybe be going above 18v.. but since the manufactuers to don't usually post the profile for a Reconditions I would just disconnect the battery and not chance it being the fact that modern cars also have the intelligent battery sensor (IBS) on the Battery Cable Post clamp nowadays... and some manufactuers claim they are very delicate, though they should be able to easily handle up to 16v since there is some varience in voltage from the Alternators.

.

 

I had a CTEK on my Jensen Healey. The battery did its best, but finally said, "Sorry Charlie."

 

I've had a CTEK 4.3 connected to my Ferrari all the time when it's not being driven for the past 10 years. Sometimes as long as 3 or 4 months when I had to be out of the country. No problems.
Alden

 

I have a variety of cars that I used to keep on tenders when not in use. After reading the attached article 10 years ago , I stopped doing that. They are only on the tenders when I'm home now...
I will concede the chances of this happening are slim but I choose not to tempt fate.

Ferrari Completely Destroys Canadian House, Because Fire [UPDATE]