I am worried that when one travel for a few weeks, the battery may run down in this case - what happens? Can we get into the car to at least put it on the charger? Is it best to leave it unlocked in the shed, or even on a charger? Seems like with so much electronica letting it go fully flat could be tricky/expensive/serious. Any thoughts or experiences?
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hmm...........this is an impossibly broad question to answer - so it ain't possible to reply in an informed manner.
What Brand/Model/build-date is this car? It matters because how the vehicle responds to a dead battery is different depending on how/when the car was built! And a big determinant of how the battery behaves is what after market gadgets are installed - like dashcams
Generally - the car will have a manual method for unlocking doors (normally via physically inserting a key into a door lock) if the battery fails. But of course prevention is better than having to deal with a dead battery when you want to use the car.
My suggestion if the car is used seldom is to make-up a simple wire-loom that joins the battery terminals to a small weatherproof 2 x pin connector on the front of the car (via an in-line fuse). Care needs to be taken as to where the negative battery terminal connection is made if the car has a Start-Stop facility. The 2 x pin weatherproof connector on the loom is discretely located outside the car somewhere where it can be accessed without the need to lift the bonnet
I've made a couple of these looms - the car-owner easily plugs a trickle charger into the weatherproof connector when the car is parked in the shed. And with a bit of thinking and with the correct choice of weatherproof connector - the charger leads can also be arranged so that even if the driver forgets to unplug the weather-proof connector - no damage will occur to the loom/charger-leads!
Worth considering - IMO, of course!!
DonLast edited by DV52; 21-08-2024, 09:22 AM.Please don't PM to ask questions about coding, or vehicle repairs. The better place to deal with these matters is in the forum proper. That way you get the benefit of the wider expertise of other forum members! Thank you.
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Easiest way is buy a Ctek MXS 5.0 and hook that up if you are going to be away for more than about 4 weeks. As said above it comes with wires that can be permanently hooked onto the battery
ALWAYS LOCK a later model VW even overnight or it sits there thinking "Is he going to start me up, Id better be ready" and thereby uses a small amount of power, keeping some stuff live. If its locked it says "Oh goody I can go to sleep" and shuts everything down, A decent dashcam should have an auto low voltage shutdown or be connected to a socket that shuts down when ignition is off.
On our extended holidays First time was 5 weeks and Passat reluctantly started (2yr old) next trip was 9 weeks and it was dead dead dead> (4 1/2yr old), So I bought the above charger and used that on rest of cars life. Extended wiring easily fitted as prev said and works with bonnet shut . .
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A bit dearer than Amazon but at least you can see its genuine and you can take it back if problems. Had mine for 10 years without any.Last edited by Guest001; 21-08-2024, 02:15 PM.2021 Kamiq LE 110 , Moon White, BV cameras F & B
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