How Long to Idle to Charge Battery

[XCRN]

My car has been stored in my garage the last few weeks and the battery is already dead. I plan to from here on until the salt is gone to start it every week and let it idle. My question is how long do you all think would be a good time to let it idle to charge the battery enough to the next week? I cannot drive it since it under storage insurance and I refuse to drive this in the salt. I got 2 other $600 turds for that.

Sponsored

 

[Wine dude]

It won’t charge enough, u will need a tender, the car still draws current even if u think it’s off. I use a NOCO (maybe a 6700) with the cable sitting under the right windshield wiper on the cowl, out of the way of everything.
I know there is a thread in the GT 350 forum where the guys discuss other tenders as well
Good luck

 

[16Fastback]

Bought this last year works great! Plug it in and forget it.

 

[local driver]

Battery tender!

 

[Flavoade]

My car has been stored in my garage the last few weeks and the battery is already dead. I plan to from here on until the salt is gone to start it every week and let it idle. My question is how long do you all think would be a good time to let it idle to charge the battery enough to the next week? I cannot drive it since it under storage insurance and I refuse to drive this in the salt. I got 2 other $600 turds for that.

The alternator will charge it enough for you to start it the next day, but not a full charge. using the alt to recharge a dead battery actually wears the alt faster than normal and will lead to early failure; it puts too much load on it, more than its designed for. The same as running a lot of audio equipment on a stock alternator.

Use a tender like the one posted above, or get a good auto battery charger for whenever the battery gets low or dies and let it charge a couple of days. This will keep your alt from early failure.

 

[jasonstang]

Just plug in a battery tender and forget about it.
Starting your engine during storage is bad also.

 

[swooshdave]

Letting any vehicle sit and idle during the winter is a horrible idea unless you let it run until it reaches operating temperatures. Which at idle will take a very, very long time if ever.

Condensation inside the engine won’t evaporate properly and you can get “mayonnaise oil”.

 

[jasonstang]

Letting any vehicle sit and idle during the winter is a horrible idea unless you let it run until it reaches operating temperatures. Which at idle will take a very, very long time if ever.

Condensation inside the engine won’t evaporate properly and you can get “mayonnaise oil”.

That is not the worst. The worst is the old biker trick which they would fire their bike up idle for 20 minutes and then rev the fuck out of it.

Sponsored