Battery Tenders

[Lawson Cox]

For years I have used a Battery Tender to keep my Optimas fully charged. Worked well for years. This was a box about 4x5x6, or close. Well, I think it finally bit the dust, at least the battery did. I replaced the battery but the old Battery Tender seems to have been discontinued, or at least I cannot find one at Wally World. I bought an EverStart 6-12 V Battery Charger & Maintainer 3A Charge rate. but have yet to hook it up. (The Battery tender was 1.25 Amps.) This battery charger/maintainer is not a box looking thing but looks something like a 1 lb link of sausage that has been stepped on and flattened lengthwise if you can envision that. Got it at Wally World for some $23.00, about like the old Battery Tenders. They have served me well over the years. Anyone have any experience with these? or know where I might purchase a new Battery Tender? Thanks guys.

[koates]

Lawson, make sure you dont start your engine with that charger still connected to the battery. That charger is probably made in China. For $23.00 it is most likely crap. You only get what you pay for. Regards, Kevin.

[19Fordy]

Lawson, I am using a C-Tec battery tender. It's a wonderful unit that does a great job. Been using it continually for last 6 years. Small and compact.
Here's the website. Pick one that works for you.
https://smartercharger.com/

[petehoovie]

Battery Tender 021-0144 Battery Tender Plus 6V Battery Charger





https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/detail...er_6_Volt.html

[Lawson Cox]

Originally Posted by petehoovie

Battery Tender 021-0144 Battery Tender Plus 6V Battery Charger





https://www.chevsofthe40s.com/detail...er_6_Volt.html

Pete. That's the one I have used for years. Very satisfied with it. I'll check out the one I have to see if it is any good and if not I'll get me a new one, The one from Wally World goes back. I bought my last battery trnder from Wally world for a little less than what it is apparently selling for now. Thanks for the input fellows. You always come through.I feel better knowing Battery Tender is still available. Lawson

[Alaska Jim]

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3 amps is to much, unless it has a float mode. I f you have a tractor supply near you, see if the still carry the Schumacher trickle charger. it is only 1.5 amps, and has a float mode. I have been using them for years. I bought mine down in Texas. I used to be able to also get them at Walmart. no longer available here in Alaska, and no tractor supply here

[aussie merc]

personaly i wound up with a cheap solar panel charger [gift] but i tell you what its an been absolute gem works spot on and bonus costs nothing to run

[Jacques1960]

I use a NOCO, expensive, but it has a 6v AGM setting

[bobH]

Originally Posted by 19Fordy

Lawson, I am using a C-Tec battery tender. It's a wonderful unit that does a great job. Been using it continually for last 6 years. Small and compact.
Here's the website. Pick one that works for you.
https://smartercharger.com/

I'd be interested in hearing a little more. I have a CTEK, and I'm not yet a fan of it. It does things that I don't yet understand... Like flashing green or red lights. The manual that came with mine does not explain what all this means. Sometimes, when I get some light indicator that I don't understand, I disconnect it, and re-connect it, and then it gives light indication that is shown in the manual. Another thing, the light codes are not printed on the side of the unit. I have to go find the manual when I want to 'decipher'.
I also have a Battery Tender, and a Battery MINder Plus, and both of these units seem to be a little more 'friendly' to me.
I have all three of these units currently running. On one car, the CTEK will not work at all, where as the other two units seem to work ok.
The CTEK is probably the best of the three units, if I can believe their published info. I just wish I could understand what it's doing, and when.

[Rudolph]

I got a battery desalphator, I connected it to a battery that wouldn’t even crank the flat head when fully charged, after about a month is was as good as new,

[35fordtn]

I use NOCO Genuis chargers they are great

[fordv8j]

I put a Wally world battery tender on our 38 conv'
, had a new Ford script battery on it; didn't check on it; when I did the battery was hot and boiled dry; put new acid in it, it never charged up, the company send the tender back with $10.00 and they would repair it, I said no thanks; they wouldn't replace my battery

[Heard]

You could just go here:

https://www.batterytender.com/battery-chargers

[koates]

Originally Posted by fordv8j

I put a Wally world battery tender on our 38 conv'
, had a new Ford script battery on it; didn't check on it; when I did the battery was hot and boiled dry; put new acid in it, it never charged up, the company send the tender back with $10.00 and they would repair it, I said no thanks; they wouldn't replace my battery

Not recommended to top up a boiled dry battery with acid. Its only water that evaporates so only top up with distilled water. I never leave batteries on charge unattended overnight. Need to keep an eye on them now and then. You never know what a charger is going to do, especially cheap Chinese crap. Regards, Kevin.

[tubman]

I have battery tenders on my cars when I go to Florida for 6 months every winter. I was concerned about overcharging, so I bought a simple timer from K-Mart. After a few months of experimentation, I found that if you set the timer to power up the maintainers for 15 minutes a day, it will keep the batteries up without worrying about overcharging and boiling. It cost me $6.99.

[Alaska Jim]

Tubman, that is a great idea. I may try it myself.

[fordv8j]

Schumaker is the brand that cooked my battery

[cajunfirehawk]

We own 4 "collector" cars, we use; 2ea C-tek 4.3us, a Deltran, & a Schauer Charge Master CM6A for our odyssey battery and they are all somewhat different but kinda do the same thing, C-tek and the Schauer are the more advanced models w/newer features where as my Deltran (same size as the 6v one shown above) is a tank workhorse but w/less features. Really comes down to how much you want to spend on one and sorry to say, all of them are made in china, afaik! YMMV

[50fordcoupeman]

Originally Posted by fordv8j

Schumaker is the brand that cooked my battery

Friends car was burned badly by a tender that went bad. Luckily a circuit breaker did its job before his shop caught on fire too, I need educated here-why does a person need a tender? I have seven batts and they have all been fine in the spring after a 4 or 5 month siesta.

[cajunfirehawk]

Originally Posted by 50fordcoupeman

Friends car was burned badly by a tender that went bad. Luckily a circuit breaker did its job before his shop caught on fire too, I need educated here-why does a person need a tender? I have seven batts and they have all been fine in the spring after a 4 or 5 month siesta.

My optima is on a c-tek, its 12 yrs old (battery)!!, I drive that car once or twice a year, literally. I use them on power equipment and 5 out of the 7 cars we own that are not daily drivers, YMMV. My 2008 f150 is the worst at parasitic battery drain, its on one too. I drive it about 1 week out of the month.

[Kurt in NJ]

I have a question for people that use battery tenders--how long do your batterys last?
When I passed the tent selling batterys and tenders I was told a tender would double my battery life.
My reply was really--it will make my battery last 30 years ? (at the time the optima was 15 years old)
---Oh no, it will double it to 5-7 years
So with regular batterys I got 7-9 years, the optima lasted 16, a 10 year old Mercedes battery that I cut in 1/2 to make it 6V lasted 4 more. I do have a high charge rate(14amps), drive a lot at night, have halogen bulbs, don't do anything even parked for 6 months ---so what do you think, will a battery tender double my battery life, make the car faster, start quicker, more reliable?

[Holeshot]

Originally Posted by Kurt in NJ

I have a question for people that use battery tenders--how long do your batterys last?
When I passed the tent selling batterys and tenders I was told a tender would double my battery life.
My reply was really--it will make my battery last 30 years ? (at the time the optima was 15 years old)
---Oh no, it will double it to 5-7 years
So with regular batterys I got 7-9 years, the optima lasted 16, a 10 year old Mercedes battery that I cut in 1/2 to make it 6V lasted 4 more. I do have a high charge rate(14amps), drive a lot at night, have halogen bulbs, don't do anything even parked for 6 months ---so what do you think, will a battery tender double my battery life, make the car faster, start quicker, more reliable?

Damn Kurt, that is some serious tender hate.


I don't know about batteries but tenders make my chicken taste better for sure.

[rockfla]

I have a NOCO & an E-Tek......I love the NOCO as it has the ability to select both voltage and battery type. I bought the E-tek on a friends recomendation and it says it charges batteries 5V-12V. It is the charger/tender you get when you buy a new Ferrari. I hooked it to the 6V battery in my Merc and a day later I had some kind of weird symbol pop up SO I have to read up on what that meant.....BUT for now it works wonders on a 12V battery!!!! I'll keep you posted on 6V and what I find out

[1948F-1Pickup]

Gee, another battery tender thread. Imagine that. Seems like I just responded yesterday....

Anyway here's my generic response-
"Any battery will go bad just sitting there...... hooked up or not...... current draw or not. That's the nature of the beast. I worked for Douglas Battery and Delco (Delphi). Wrote warranty and did plenty of battery autopsies. You hear a lot of stuff about batteries, that's for sure.
On two cars that are literally never driven, I have maintainers. A Genius G750 on one car and a Battery Tender (not sure which model) on the other.
The argument would be that the cars should actually be driven but with 5 others in constant rotation, we have plenty of wheels for the two drivers in the house."

How long do my batteries last? Flooded style, in a car in use, seem to go about 7 years. Current day Optimas, about the same. In an un-driven car....
an Optima (not even hooked up) they seem to have a shelf life of 5 years until totally dead and not capable of being resuscitated.
The two cars that have the battery maintainers have only had them for a couple of years, so too early for any conclusions.

[Automotive Stud]

Originally Posted by 50fordcoupeman

Friends car was burned badly by a tender that went bad. Luckily a circuit breaker did its job before his shop caught on fire too, I need educated here-why does a person need a tender? I have seven batts and they have all been fine in the spring after a 4 or 5 month siesta.

Originally Posted by Kurt in NJ

I have a question for people that use battery tenders--how long do your batterys last?
When I passed the tent selling batterys and tenders I was told a tender would double my battery life.
My reply was really--it will make my battery last 30 years ? (at the time the optima was 15 years old)
---Oh no, it will double it to 5-7 years
So with regular batterys I got 7-9 years, the optima lasted 16, a 10 year old Mercedes battery that I cut in 1/2 to make it 6V lasted 4 more. I do have a high charge rate(14amps), drive a lot at night, have halogen bulbs, don't do anything even parked for 6 months ---so what do you think, will a battery tender double my battery life, make the car faster, start quicker, more reliable?

I have a few cars with electric clocks, and after a month of sitting even in the summer the battery wouldn't crank the car. They would always take a charge and be fine, but that's why I started using battery tenders almost twenty years ago. Disconnecting the battery when I wasn't using it would help, but it would still lose a charge over the winter.

As for battery life, I had a battery I bought in October 2006 that needed to be replaced September 2017, and another I bought in March 2006 that I replaced in May 2019. That one still started the flathead just fine, but it failed a load test and I didn't want it to leave me stranded. I have an optima I purchased in 2009 that is still on a tender and going strong.

I don't know about you, but I never got well over eleven years out of all of my batteries before using the battery tenders. And I never have to wonder if my car will start when I want to take it out. If you don't see the value in that, don't buy one.

[52flthed]

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Originally Posted by 35fordtn

I use NOCO Genuis chargers they are great

I bought this one from Chucks Trucks in CT . It works fast and well.

[Jacques1960]

Second the positive NOCO review

[50fordcoupeman]

Originally Posted by Automotive Stud

I have a few cars with electric clocks, and after a month of sitting even in the summer the battery wouldn't crank the car. They would always take a charge and be fine, but that's why I started using battery tenders almost twenty years ago. Disconnecting the battery when I wasn't using it would help, but it would still lose a charge over the winter.

As for battery life, I had a battery I bought in October 2006 that needed to be replaced September 2017, and another I bought in March 2006 that I replaced in May 2019. That one still started the flathead just fine, but it failed a load test and I didn't want it to leave me stranded. I have an optima I purchased in 2009 that is still on a tender and going strong.

I don't know about you, but I never got well over eleven years out of all of my batteries before using the battery tenders. And I never have to wonder if my car will start when I want to take it out. If you don't see the value in that, don't buy one.

Thank you for your reply. I was just asking is all. I use a battery shut off on all of my old stuff so running down a battery is not an issue. My only exp with a tender is my friends burned up car so was just asking. Nothing asked nothing learned!!

[36coupe]

Originally Posted by Jacques1960

I use a NOCO, expensive, but it has a 6v AGM setting

My favourite

[Automotive Stud]

Originally Posted by 50fordcoupeman

Thank you for your reply. I was just asking is all. I use a battery shut off on all of my old stuff so running down a battery is not an issue. My only exp with a tender is my friends burned up car so was just asking. Nothing asked nothing learned!!

No worries. I guess anything can happen, I have my battery tender plugged into a surge protector. I've had my building hit by lightning before and I have one of those big 4 gang tenders. Hopefully that will protect it and the cars if something happens.

[Tinker]

Just pulled both of my old 6v optima batteries out for another winter to be charged once and put on a shelf till spring when I will charge them once more for the summer. Going on 11 and 14 yrs. I disconnect the batteries in summer when not driving. Never tend them. But I use 30w oil too.

[corvette8n]

I take my regular batteries out for the winter and put them in my cellar(cool dry place), charge it full and leave it until Spring, I’ve had no issues with my 2-6 volt batteries or the riding lawn mowers 12 volt battery. The only Optima is in my wife’s daily driver so I can’t comment on it.

[PeteVS]

I have an old Chevy coupe that I redid and put on the road in 2004. I had put in a Costco battery and a green knob disconnect on the ground post. The car sits in an unheated garage over the winter. No charger, no tender, no nuthin. This spring, before I got the car out of storage, I went back to Costco and bought a new battery expecting that the old one would be dead but it roared to life on the old one. I'm thinking of putting the new one in before I put it in storage.