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[Taxi_Driver]

I regulary check the voltage of my battery, especially so now the nights are getting darker and more load is put onto the battery.

If mine drops below 13.5v, I put it on a trickle charger immediately.

Isnt that a bit of a pain tho AA, assuming you disconnect the -ve from the battery first,
having to reset windows/radio code etc  :-/

I have it on good authority, i.e. from the experts, that if you only trickle charge the battery, you don't need to disconnect it.

I find that during the winter months, especially if you only do short journeys, the battery is hardly ever fully charged, and that's when you get deteriation.

I much prefered my Sennie and my Carlton, they were both fitted with voltmeters, and you could see at a glance the state of your battery.

Ah rite, cheers AA summat i didnt know.....didnt think it was a good idea to even trickle charge the batt with it connected.

I once foobarred a Vectra jump starting another car with it.....immediately afterwards the vectra would only run on 3 cylinders and its EML came on when you turned the ignition off!! Vx dealer diagnosed ECU knackered, which i could well believe in this circumstance. Never did find out if it was the case, as it was a lease car, so gave it back to leasing comp and asked for another.

You could always get a blingy voltmeter from Halfauds and stick it on your dash  

[Auto Addict]

I regulary check the voltage of my battery, especially so now the nights are getting darker and more load is put onto the battery.

If mine drops below 13.5v, I put it on a trickle charger immediately.

Isnt that a bit of a pain tho AA, assuming you disconnect the -ve from the battery first,
having to reset windows/radio code etc  :-/

I have it on good authority, i.e. from the experts, that if you only trickle charge the battery, you don't need to disconnect it.

I find that during the winter months, especially if you only do short journeys, the battery is hardly ever fully charged, and that's when you get deteriation.

I much prefered my Sennie and my Carlton, they were both fitted with voltmeters, and you could see at a glance the state of your battery.

Ah rite, cheers AA summat i didnt know.....didnt think it was a good idea to even trickle charge the batt with it connected.

I once foobarred a Vectra jump starting another car with it.....immediately afterwards the vectra would only run on 3 cylinders and its EML came on when you turned the ignition off!! Vx dealer diagnosed ECU knackered, which i could well believe in this circumstance. Never did find out if it was the case, as it was a lease car, so gave it back to leasing comp and asked for another.

You could always get a blingy voltmeter from Halfauds and stick it on your dash  

As I understand it, if you trickle charge the battery, at no more than max 4 amps, you will not do any harm.

I was given this info by Vx service manager, and responses off the other site.

It's when you boost charge the battery at more than 4 amps you can cause damage.

I would be interested though, to have Marks comments on this.

Any thoughts Mark?

[Elite Pete]

Well I replaced the battery yesterday and I bought it from Halfrauds with the trade card. It originally cost £59.99 but I got it for £34.67 bargin. I dont know how this compares with Vauxhall and their trade club?

[RobC_NE]

mine now has a heavy-duty battery (72Ah) and a 120 amp alternator from an ex plod mv6. never looked back. it even has enough power to run all the warning equipment on the car  [smiley=thumbsup.gif]

[SHARPEY]

I use an Optimizer or Optimate charger on my car occasionaly. I have two of them for my road and track bikes and they do a good job.

They sus out the condition of your battery first and take the necessary action to return it to good health....thats if it's not completely knackered !!

[Marks DTM Calib]

You should be ok to trickle charge whilst connected but, it depends on the quality of the charger.

What you need to avoid is excessive charge voltage as this may efect the car electronics.

A standard battery charger is mega crude and uses an un-smoothed rectified charge system which peaks at well over 20V.

To be honest....4amp is not what I would call a trickle charge, that is a standard 16 hour charge current, the general concess is is for a trcikle charge current to be not more than 1/100th of the Ah rating of the battery...so we are talking of well under 1A