I've a 2011 that mostly sits in the driveway as my second car. I know there's a lot of electronics that depend on the 12v battery even when not running, so how often should I drive it to keep it charged, and for how long each time? Mind you, the 12v battery that's in there now has been run down and fully charged once. It was installed with 11.5v and I've been driving it everyday since. I have a spare that was charged and holding at 12.9-ish volts. We're also going through a cold snap here in Texas. Thanks for any advice...
There are MANY maintainers out there. But if you get once for the AGM batteries at 5 amps or less, and use it about once a month you should be fine. Ususally, it will charge the battery and cut off when it's fully charged. There are ones that will "pulse" recondition the battery, then charge it. Which takes several hours. But you've got the time. There is a constand draw on the battery while in the car, and hooked up. A battery on the bench had no draw so it will show higher voltage. There are also solar chargers that will keep a low amperage charge going to the battery. Just make sure you get one of higher amperage...
Just put a 'smart' RV battery maintainer on it. I'd be more concerned with the traction battery, If you have any modules that are borderline, that's about the worse thing you can do to it. Those NiMH modules don't like to be idled. IMHO, you should sell it and get a purely ICE car as your backup. Hope this helps......
We’re driving around 3k kms a year. I put ours on a 4 amp smart charger any day the cars not being used, and leave it on, no harm. There’s nothing all that special about AGM’s; it’s not imperative they have a special charger. My charger, a CTEK 4.3, recommendations to use the snowflake (*) setting, a below freezing charging option, for optimum charging, just with AGMs that have the 6-pack shape. It charges at slightly higher voltage; think that’s the only difference yeah, if you can run an extension cord to it you’re in business, or if there’s a garage clear some space?
hard to say, it will take some experimentation. try 20 minutes every third day and go from there. measure the voltage before starting each time and track it.
Thanks for replies.. guess I should a mentioned, the battery is an OPTIMA Yellow Top, and my charger is a NOCO genius 10 (Amazon), charges, then maintains it.
