10-30-2013, 04:15 AM
(10-29-2013, 11:54 PM)Rboe_imp Wrote: If you live in a cold to very cold state in the winter; if the battery had a good charge and is in a good state (and it won't see twenty below) I'd just leave it till spring then recharge for the following reasons.
If you remember your high school chemistry chemical reactions like heat. Things not working so well? Add energy to the system with heat. Cool things off and chemical reactions slow down or stop. It's for this reason that batteries last so much longer up north than in Phoenix. The heat just cooks batteries down here. Standard car battery lives about 18 months (person experience) where as in Minnesota seven years is not unheard of.
I had one guy come into my parts department with this very small Yuasa battery for a dirt bike that was ten years old and was finally dead. No trickle charger, stored in the bike (you need to control the sulfate that forms on the terminals so you don't ruin the bike or cables) and otherwise treated with little love.
Now my way may not be the best way any more, but I'm not convinced a battery on trickle charge does it good for that long. At least in cold states. Warm states I'm all for trickle chargers as the battery will self destruct due to the heat keeping the chemical reactions going sulfating the battery.
I never pickled an engine for storage either. Parked her, charged it up in the spring and rode her. The cold kept things like rust at bay (just another chemical reaction). With todays gas with ethanol I don't think I could get away with that so Seafoam or Stabil would be used.
I must have been just plain lucky when I lived in Yuma, AZ for those 18 years. Vehicle batteries for me lasted 5 to 7 years! All depending on the size of the battery. My 1973 GMC pickup I owned for 10 years and that battery was replaced once just before I sold it.
Unless things have changed in the past 10 years since I was last living there...