pishta

I have an 93 SC400 and I dont drive it but about once a week as I drive a company truck. If I dont drive it in 2-3 weeks, the battery is week enough to not start the car. From receipts, the battery is less than 2 years old, its a Car Quest brand battery. Question: can I install a master disconnect and just "disconnect" the battery while its sleeping? Or will that mess with the PCM? Clock and radio are no big deal. I can jump it and itll start just fine after that but sometimes its a while that I drive it.

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

Other than disabling the alarm, I can't think of any ill effect of disconnecting the battery. The ECU will reset each time you reconnect it, but it seems to re-learn pretty quickly.

Although, kill switches sometimes create funky ignition issues, so wiring in a quick disconnect could present similar problems.

CatManD3W

iTrader: (18)

Get a new battery....they are not that expensive

salimshah

I used to keep trip odo to keep track of oil change ,,, unfortunately that gets reset when battery is disconnected.

I would suggest getting a battery tender [< $6.00 with coupon at Harborfreight]

Salim

bigwhite

What he said. Salim

t2d2

iTrader: (8)

Battery tenders are a decent option ... if you park in a garage. Also, they're rather annoying to connect and disconnect every time you want to drive the car, although SC batteries are at least easily accessible.

pishta

I have a bolt on tender and will use it. Just wondered if the tranny shift points reset or something crazy like on my old Plymouth Breeze.

matguy

Many cars can drain a perfectly fine battery in a couple weeks of not being driven. Such is the state of technology with keyless entry; you have to power the receiver somehow.

If it's a pain to keep a tender on it you could also go the solar route. You'd have to wire in a (fused) lead that keeps battery power when the car is off, preferably with a quick-disconnect of some kind. A fairly-small solar array sitting on your dash might be just enough to keep the battery happy.

There's a good chance that a 5 watt would be fine, depending on how much of a draw you have. 5 watts is pretty cheap, 7.5W is not much more. Being in California I would imagine that your sun-cover is less of a concern than some of the more Northern states.