We are getting ready to store our 2003 XK8 convertible for the winter. A friend of my who stores his corvette says he hooks up a trickle charge of some kind to his car to keep his battery up while it is stored (5 months).


He says he uses 1 charge that pugs into the cigarette lighter and on a different car he uses one that hooks up the battery.


Does anyone have any experience with any trickle charger that they would recommend while their Jaguar is stored for the winter?


Thank you,
John and Lin

 

John,

I've moved your question from X308 to XK8/XKR forum. There has been a lot of discussion on this.

My own choice is a CTEK which comes with a battery connection lead. It's been very reliable for over four years now. Was previously used on my XK8 and now on my XK.

Graham

 

I use a CTEK for all my cars. For the XKR, I installed a comfort plug in the trunk.

 

+1 on the above for the CTEK. Install it correctly and you will have nothing to worry about. Personally I would never use the cigarette lighter socket to maintain the car's battery.

 

I have used a Battery Tender brand charger for years without issue. It will intelligently maintain the battery without evaporating the electrolyte. I have also used a Harbor Freight intelligent float charger that does the same thing at $4.99 now on sale.

Tight Wad Tom

 

I second the harbor freight charger. They are cheap and I have a lot of batteries to keep up.

Using the terminals under the hood works better than than charging from the trunk. That cover is unweildy to get to the terminals.
The hood open gives a good warning that the wires are attached when you get in to back out of the garage

 

I would spend the money on a CTEK.

Cheap electronics is more likely to fail, and failure can result in overcharging and a battery explosion (this actually happened to me with a Jeep and trust me, you do not want sulfuric acid all over your battery compartment). It is not worth the added risk for a few bucks.

 

I use the one of these :-

Solar Panel Battery Charger OBD ll Cable FREE DELVERY | eBay

with either a float charger or dedicated 12v car solar panel internal or external to the car.

the OBD connector has direct connection to the battery the cigarette socket is via ignition switch.

my charger is :-

YUASA-SMART-CHARGER-YCX-5-0-12V-5A-8-STAGE

hope this is helpful

 

In addition to the CTEK charger, I hav the CTEK battery sense connector. This is a Bluetooth to battery dongle that has a phone app and tells me status of battery.

 

Isn't the cigar lighter ignition switched so no use anyway?

I also have a CTEK (Multi US 4.3)

 

The YUASA-SMART-CHARGER-YCX-5-0-12V-5A-8-STAGE looks identical to the CTEK (56-864) MUS 4.3 12 Volt Fully Automatic 8 Step Battery Charger, except for the brand name. The CTEK is more easily available in the US.

 

I've used the Battery Tender for several years.

 

The key in all of this is that you must use a battery tender or maintainer and not a trickle charger. The difference is that a tender will turn itself on and off as required avoiding an overcharge as opposed to a trickle charge which is on 24/7

 

All great tips, but where are the terminals under the hood?
a pic would be nice too
many thanks

 

The correct place for the maintainer is at the battery with negative to the car body.

 

There is a similar 12V terminal on both sides of the car.

The tiny amount of battery maintainer amps applied here won't hurt anything.


Don't charge the battery @ 10 amps doing this, however.

 

I have used battery tenders for years. In fact I have one on my TVR right now. Haven't heard anything bad about ctek but Deltran is the "original". Easy to hook up perm. plug in the trunk that you can leave just the plug portion sticking up from the floor. Just be sure to feed the cord so it doesn't crimp on the trunk.

I also would be leary about using the cig lighter even though tenders limit the fuse to 7.5amp which should be fine for the socket over the long term I simply don't trust those wires being thick enough.

Last thing is if you have a lithium battery you need a charger that is made for those specific batteries as they have a different charging proceedure and can be destroyed by a regular lead acid maintainer.

 

Interesting you mention Liion. CTEK has a liion tender but I have yet to see one in a car or aftermarket.

 

Some Porsches have a Li ion battery option. I have seen a few for sale.

 

I got one for my motorcycle a couple years back (battery died while on the road in Iowa and it was the only battery they had that was charged as most bike batteries sit for years waiting filled and charged. I will never buy another one nor recommend them to anyone who actually uses their vehicle. They are billed as being great at holding a charge which they do. Perfect for a car that sits all winter without a tender on it as aside from usage the battery will still have the same volts as the day you put it away. The big failings I have found from 2 years with mine is that they, just like an Iphone hate the heat and cold. They will go into safe mode. I first had it fail 2 months after getting it when I got stuck in bumper to bumper slow moving traffic for 20 minutes on a 100 degree day. The battery went into safe mode and wouldn't restart the bike for 4 hours while it cooled down. Then the first winter it wouldn't start my bike when it was below 30 degrees outside without a 3-5 minute process of "waking" the POJ from safe mode.

I have simply started reinstalling a spare lead acid battery for the winter months as who in their right mind wants to go out on a cold morning and stand there and play with the lights for a couple minutes to wake their battery up?

Great idea but they are a fail for real life usage. That said I did see someone mentioned Porkhaus is using them (and it helps 'em loose some of that pig fat!). That is the perfect application. A daily driver that spends time outside in weather "extremes" not so much.