Be gone for a month, disconnect batteries or not?

[HankB]

Battery tenders are relatively inexpensive (about $100), easy to use and will more than pay for itself in the long run. For a little over thirty years I had company cars/trucks that in almost all cases were daily drivers. As a result my personal vehicles sat for long periods and batteries would go flat. My last air cooled Porsche, a 964 C2 was the worst. That’s when I started using a battery tender, problems went away. I still use them today even though I’m retired and don’t have a company ride anymore.

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[ShadowsPapa]

Less than that if it's just to maintain the battery, not do all of the tricks and phases of a full charger. I have one that's about 1 amp and another that' .5 amp and both do a good job of keeping a battery up that's been properly charged.
You can get decent full chargers that do all of the AGM charging phases, desulfate and float for 130 or so.

 

[Mr._Bill]

Amazon had a 50% off promotion when I went looking for a new charger. I got this one for $30.

GOOLOO 6 Amp Smart Battery Charger, 6V and 12V Trickle Charger and Maintainer for Lead-Acid Battery, Up to 150Ah, Supersafe Battery Desulfator with LCD Display Pulse Repair Charger(S6) https://a.co/d/74wfbDa

 

[Brojave22]

if you have uconnect just every few days start the jeep up from the app

 

[Mr._Bill]

if you have uconnect just every few days start the jeep up from the app

You can only do two remote starts, and then you have to get in and start it to reset the counter.

 

[Brojave22]

You can only do two remote starts, and then you have to get in and start it to reset the counter.

2 isnt bad, start it once every 10 days for a month

 

[ShadowsPapa]

The internet, where the solution is often worse than the problem..............

I see multiple things wrong with that, starting with the general thing - it was not a good idea in the 60s, and is still not a good idea. Classic car people keep bringing it up, classic car people who know how bad it is shoot it right back down.

As a mechanic for years, I see several issues with that - even if it did allow unlimited remote starts or even 3 or 4 from the app.

First, you often pull more out in a start than you you put back in letting it run for a few minutes. In other words, you may end up with batteries a bit lower than when you started. The opposite of the objectives. The proof is in the numbers of people - including myself, who have had their battery SoC actually go down after it sits, then gets driven just a few miles and back. (and as a charging system person, I've seen it over the years anyway). If the idea is to keep the batteries up and in good health - it's interesting that one might advocate taking power out and not necessarily putting it all back in, and not making up for the natural loss any battery will have from sitting.

An idling engine is not good - I know, while growing up people would go out and start their cars and let them run to keep batterie up, or to just not have it sit for weeks, or in cold weather, so it would start in the morning. It was the common thing. I even hears "mechanics" suggest people go out and start their car, let it run 10 or 15 minutes just so it wasn't just sitting. And that was in the 70s.
And they did this even though the magazines and mechanics who knew their head from some other part said it was a bad idea. When you start it and idle it, it's not only running an a less than ideal fuel mixture due to idle rpm (idle mixture is often more rich), it's also putting moisture, blow-by into the crankcase. Running for a few minutes won't burn that out. It sits and forms acids. Idling engines are bad. So now you have moisture, the acids from blow-by and just plain contaminates in the crankcase, and water in the exhaust.

Cold starts are the worst things for engines. Idling is right up there. Not letting the oil get up to temperature and burning the water out of the oil and exhaust - not good.
Cold starts are where the most wear on electrical systems and starters happen.

If it's in an attached garage, you have fire risks, and CO. Even in a detached garage, a running engine isn't even close to smart with no one there.
If it was not in a garage, sitting running in the open, I can imagine it getting some attention......

The truck may or may not get the start signal. Sure you could test it before leaving, but there's still no guarantee, and with no one there, you aren't sure if things are normal on that end.

It's such a bad idea when you are there to start and run a vehicle for that short time - just idling it, it's an even worse idea when you are away from it. I can't believe that to this day people still go start cars and let them run thinking it's better than letting them sit.
A <$100 battery minder is the ideal.

It's a huge discussion in the classic car hobby when people let their cars sit for anywhere from 1 to 3 months and any time someone suggests "I just go out and start it and let it run for 10 minutes or so" they are educated on why that's a horrible idea.

I realize it would likely only be 2 or 3 times - it's just still a bad idea as those with real experience (not internet experience) would tell.

No offense, but this is one of those mud against the wall to see what gets popular approval things, not what's best for the vehicle over-all. With multiple classic cars, multiple cars in general for my whole life (and grain trucks that sat 10 out of 12 months) this is just really interesting...............

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