Will my car start after 10 days parked?

maybe. the key factor is the health of the battery. i thought getting a car off the delivery truck within a few days, was a pretty good guarantee that the battery had never been depleted. but one poster says he got his right off the boat and the battery was dead. i like to test mine at home, so i begin to get a feel for voltage drop over time. mine starts every winter after 5 weeks in an unheated garage. so who knows? i hope so.

 

I recall the main recommendation being to turn off "smart" entry feature so it isn't constantly looking for a nearby fob. We parked our car for a 3-week trip and it started right up when we got back. EV was depleted when we parked but that was just coincidental.

 

Mine did…

 

Mine did too. Don't worry!

 

It was a concern with the gen2, but does the gen3 even have a way of turning it off?

 

some have said it is now in the menu, i haven't looked.

 

I thought Gen3 the smart key system turns itself off after about 24 hrs or so, so you do not have to worry about it.
Gen2 we have manual button.

 

Apart from the go-no-go question, what does 10 days sitting do to a battery's health, state of charge, lifespan? Especially with no preservation strategy? And after two or three similar events?

If I'm doing something like that I'm gonna be proactive: disconnect it and/or hook up a smart charger.

 

If the battery is charged up, and was sized right for the car and all its accessories, leaving it park for a couple weeks should do harm to it. If that is a regular occurance, giving the battery an occasional charge would be prudent. I do so with the wife's car because it doesn't see much use, and most of its trips are under 5 miles.

 

i can only say that my '04 lasted 8 years, with the battery sitting idle every winter for 5-6 weeks for the first 4 years and the sks on. my '08 the same thing and my daughter has had it the last 4 years and it sits almost all week as she takes the bus. oem battery probably needs to be changed. but i'm sure some damage occurs naturally. maybe these batteries would last 25 years under the right conditions.

 

As long as we're trading horror stories:

Our 12 volt's exactly as old as the car, well from our purchase date in November 2010. It'd been getting so-so, stubbornly dropping voltage. Then I got absent minded one afternoon, gonna blame 3 grand kids AND a dog: left the driver's door ajar, and there it sat for about 18 hours.

While I've turned the dome light COMPLETELY off, we have the illuminated thresholds, there was the usual door "courtesy" lights and a couple of sneaky pin lights in the foot wells. Long story short the battery was near death, 11.9 volts. It took about 18 hours before my CTEK dubbed it done. But:

Ever since then it's been showing great state of charge, high 12.6, sometimes 12.7. Maybe there's something to that adage for certain battery types, to deep drain and recharge??

 

Even if you keep the dome lights off and disconnect all those nonsense lights, it will still thoroughly deflate the battery within three days if a door is not fully closed.

 

They should last longer than the starter battery in a non-hybrid. There is just less draw on them. But it comes down to them being sized right for the job. What ends up killing lead acid batteries is deep discharges. Shallow ones where it only loses about 20% charge will let it last for years, but if the battery is getting drained to near empty each time it is used, it will have a shorter life. Which is why it is good idea the charge them up after sitting.

A regular car take up to 20 minutes of driving to fully charge the battery after starting the car. So with short trips, it isn't getting fully charged before the car is turned off. So the battery isn't at 100% the next time it is used to start the car. Then discharging also occurs while the car is parked.

Perhaps your battery had reversible sulfation, and the grid charge cured it.
"There are two types of sulfation: reversible (or soft sulfation), and permanent (or hard sulfation). If a battery is serviced early, reversible sulfation can often be corrected by applying an overcharge to a fully charged battery in the form of a regulated current of about 200mA. The battery terminal voltage is allowed to rise to between 2.50 and 2.66V/cell (15 and 16V on a 12V mono block) for about 24 hours. Increasing the battery temperature to 50–60°C (122–140°F) further helps in dissolving the crystals. Permanent sulfation sets in when the battery has been in a low state-of-charge for weeks or months. At this stage, no form of restoration is possible."
Sulfation and How to Prevent it - Battery University

The lead sulfate crystals form when the battery has a low charge. The best way to prevent it is to keep the battery fully charged, but if it starts happening, it can be fixed if seen to in time.

 

Yeah, keeps the car active somehow?

 

TrollBait, thanks for the info and link. Reversible vs non-reversible sulphation sounds like tartar vs plaque, lol.

I periodically hook up the CTEK, but maybe the deep discharge inadvertently created a good scenario, the long recharge period dispelled some sulphation.

 

I had parked my car for about 30 days with a BT OBD sensor plugged in and getting that thing working again was a horror story.

The car was left parked in a garage with about 60% charge remaining. When I came back, the car was completely dead – I had to open the door with the manual key. Jump started the car, pushed the gas to turn on the engine even though the battery was charged, drove home about 1.5 miles, and parked. everything seemed okay.

a few hours later, imagine my surprise when the car attempted to turn on but failed to complete the boot sequence. My attempts to gas it also tripped some HV system sensors, so after jump starting, I had the yellow exclamation mark which I had to keep resetting. More alarming, my estimated EV range of 4 miles was gone after driving about half a mile at speeds barely exceeding 25 mph. I arrived at a charger with a fully depleted battery and a running engine. The full charge took 3.217 kWh, which is actually a record for the car since I've purchased it (the previous record was 3.013, reached only once; everything else has been below 3 kWh).

 

all is well now?