I'm in search of good advice and buying suggestions...
Backstory, Yesterday, going out to take the Outlaw Bug for a spin through the rural countryside, I discovered the battery dead. It was holding 12volts, but a complete failure when put on the load tester. This is a 13 month old Autozone Gold battery. The car is stored in conditioned shop with a battery tender always connected. This is the third battery to fail like this every 13 months or so. Car is equipped with a complete system master kill switch.
I replaced the unit and during my Saturday drive stopped at a local cars and coffee during which more than one person told me they experienced the same thing with the low cost battery tenders and have since moved up to unit with brains that perform "battery maintenance". They were saying the inexpensive tenders must "overcook" the battery.
Now... my question: What does the hive suggest I purchase to maintain my fleet's batteries?
I have had this one for 9 years. Works great :0)
I have had three flavors of the Del Tran Battery Tender, all good. I like the marine ones for things parked outside as they are waterproof.
I bought like 8 Battery Tender Jrs a couple years ago when a bunch of stuff refused to start after a long winter- no complaints, they're all doing their thing quite effectively.
I got a 4 plug Noco Genius last year to keep mower, tractor, son's moto and an extra car battery all topped off.
I like that you can select battery type for each plug.
I've been thinking about this issue more overnight. The Outlaw Bug was built by racers to race. Every bushing on the car is steel. The engine is on solid mounts. The car weighs less than 1500# and is riding on about 4800# of springs. Basically the suspension is controlled by tire pressure. I'm starting to wonder if we aren't just shaking the lead batteries to death. Maybe its time to go to a AGM or lithium battery, as I have done on the other real race cars.
But, that said, being grassroots, since I just invested in a $240 battery, I'm going to go forward for now with something like the Noco.
I've not had any experience with the Deltran Battery Tenders "cooking" batteries that weren't on the way out already, and I've got pretty much all the motorcycles and a lot of the cars hooked up to them. With the cheaper "maintenance chargers", yes, seen this.
Another charger manufacturer with a very good reputation is ctek, again, not cheap but from what I hear they're worth the money.
I have a Schumacher SP1298 and an older version of the Schumacher 1356 both of which I'm really happy with. Both of the race cars live on them and I'm getting over 5 years out of the batteries on both of them.
I'm very happy with my CTEK tender. It's more versatile than the 'battery tender' brand above. I've been disappointed by the cheap ones too many times. And by disappointed I mean pissed off because I am geared up to go for a motorcycle ride and can't because it won't start.
I pulled the trigger on a CTEK 5.0 with adapter to go in the cigarette lighter. The kill switch kills everything on the car except the cigarette lighter which has a direct fused link to the battery. Making the connection process easier. Thought about the expense but justified it because of the yard full of boats, motorhomes, zero-turns, and fleet.
Might find out next year that a AGM will be better in the vibrating environment. LOL
