12 volt battery maintenance and conditioning

[olduser1]

Bought a CTEK years ago - never regreted it!
Agreed, it is not your "cheepest" buy but in my opinion is worth every penny (sorry: cent)

CTEK chargers are the tops, you cannot go wrong. It's like everything we can now buy, avoid the race to the bottom.

[LJs JAZZ]

It seems very strange that battery life is so unpredictable. My brother bought a car brand new in 2005 and the
battery has only just failed. There were no warning signs of impending failure it just died.!!
He never used any maintenancnce chargers and his car usage was not conducive to long nattery life IE
the car has only done 70,000 miles and had fairly long periods of none use
The best life I have had out of a battery is 10 years, but usually about 6 to 7 years, no maitenance
charging !

[5thcivic]

Lidl have been selling those chargers in their "middle aisle" for around 15 years, they used to be from memory £6.99, today I think they are £12.99.

Yes, you're right, £12.99 is what I paid, and it has a three year guarantee. I remember many years ago Aldi had them as an Xmas bargain at £6.99 and I missed out, finaly got one when a Lidl was build nearby. It says made in Germany and is on Amazon for £32!

[aphybrid]

After reading the topics on battery fails/maintenance I did buy a powerbank - just in case.

Just home from sunny Tenerife with car left in an open Edinburgh car prk for 3weeks - 22/12/23 to 11/1/24 and instant start no problems.

[Bristol_Crosstar]

It seems very strange that battery life is so unpredictable. My brother bought a car brand new in 2005 and the
battery has only just failed. There were no warning signs of impending failure it just died.!!
He never used any maintenancnce chargers and his car usage was not conducive to long nattery life IE
the car has only done 70,000 miles and had fairly long periods of none use
The best life I have had out of a battery is 10 years, but usually about 6 to 7 years, no maitenance
charging !

It's fairly common for the smaller 12V batteries used in EV's and Hybrids to fail sooner than the traditional batteries used in ICE cars, it's probably because they don't hold as much charge in the first place and they rarely get fully charged by the car which prioritises the larger batteries used to drive the electric motor, that's why I occasionally give mine a full charge to hopefully extend the battery's life, time will tell!