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Serious question, does anyone else think a battery tender is fine for 5 months of winter?
I keep seeing guys on here say you have to pull the battery and bring it inside for winter storage. I did that for 6 years with my 68 Chevelle and honestly it was a pain dragging a 45 pound battery up basement stairs every November. Two winters ago I got lazy and just left it in the car with a cheap maintainer plugged in, and the car fired right up in April just like always. Now I'm wondering if I wasted all those years carrying it around for nothing. The thing that bugs me is people repeat the pull it inside line like it's gospel but nobody says why, other than it gets cold. Cold does not kill a charged battery, it actually slows the drain down. What kills it is sitting there going dead for months. Has anyone here actually had a battery go bad from leaving it in the car over winter, or is this one of those things we all just do because our grandpas did?
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daniel_carter4d ago
Why does everyone treat car care rules like they came down from the mountain on stone tablets? It's the same thing with oil changes every 3,000 miles, or warming up your car for ten minutes in the driveway, stuff people have done forever without ever asking if it still makes sense. You already did the test yourself and the car started fine, so that tells you more than forum folklore ever will. A charged battery in the cold is fine, the cold actually slows the chemical reactions down on both ends. What wrecks a battery is letting it sit at half charge for months, that's when it sulfates and dies for real. My guess is the pull it inside thing came from the days before cheap maintainers existed, when leaving it in meant it would drain dead by January.
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