Hello. We bought a 2005 Lexus RX 330 with 80k miles about 4 months ago. My daughter hasn’t got her license yet so its been sitting. The dealership put a new battery in it but I had to jump it a few weeks ago to move it for parking. To the point could I please ask someone how I should manage the battery situation in a non driving scenario. She may be driving in a month but now its bad weather so she may not until Spring. Sorry lots of unnecessary information.

 

Because the car has things using battery power 24/7, you would be lucky if the car starts after sitting unused for a month. Some of the things are the radio, the alarm system, the ECM and various control modules such as the key fob receiver.

If the car is parked in a garage, get a small battery charger called a battery trickle charger and hook it up to maintain the battery's charge. If you can't do that, then either start the car every week and run it for at least a half hour. A last choice would be to disconnect the battery cable, but then you will have to re-program the radio station presets and re-initialize the power windows and sun roof when you connect the battery again if you will be driving the car regularly..

 

Thank you for sharing this!

 

the car sitting for a month should not be a problem in the least IF the battery was good to begin with. A "New" battery does not mean it is a "fully charged" battery most people assume it is... most places that sell batteries you can ask them to charge it overnight before you pick it up to assure it is fully charged since your cars alternator does not do this. I use and highly recommend using a battery maintainer (not the same as a trickle charger), these bring your battery up to full capacity then maintain that. There are cheap models found for under $50 but those are not true maintainers that bring your battery up and keep it there they simply keep a small current flowing forever I'm talking either a Deltran Battery Tender OR CTek (I use a Ctek MXS 5.0 Amazon has them for $100). You plug it in and leave it. The Cteks are now given to customers when you purchase a Bentley, Jaguars, high-end Porsche, LAmborghini, McLaren and many other cars where they often sit for periods of time. I use mine about every 3 mo's also anytime I'm doing anything that requires keeping a door open for a period of time (working on car stereo, detailing my car, checknig my seat heaters, etc). I've used both Cteks and Battery Tenders for decades on cars and motorcycles.