DonC

I appear to be suffering from a slow battery drain on a '96 Coupe. I travel a lot and was gone for two weeks. Came back to a dead battery that had recently been replaced.

I'm thinking of putting the car on a charger. Does anyone have any experience with the 1.5A charger that Tweeks carries? The ad in the catalog mentions that it will put a charge on the battery whenever the voltage drops by one volt.

Don

Bruce SEA 993

I think this one has been kicked around here quite a bit...the 993s will drain the battery in 10 to 12 days with all of the electronics and security that are kept hot.

I use an on board 1 amp charger when ever the the car will not be driven for more that 4 to 5 days. It senses the voltage drop at 1 volt and brings it back up.

I think I got it at Performance products. I just wired it onto the battery terminals and left the plug in the area front of the trunk. It is simple to plug it in...in fact I should do that tonight.

GK

Hi Don,

There was a thread on the 964 board about battery drains that might interest you. Here's the link: http://forums.rennlist.com/scripts/r...c&f=4&t=000408

It is probably better to try to identify the source of the drain before hooking up a charger. My battery can easily handle sleeping periods of 3 weeks at the time with alarm on, and so should yours.

For the charger, there's also a slow charger sold by Porsche which should get you out of trouble if you don't succeed in the drain search.

Good luck,
Giorgio.

Jeff 993TT

Ditto for being idle for 3 weeks and being ok here too..

Jeff

Viken

If you want to keep a healthy battery maintained, look into getting the Porsche Charge-o-Mat. It is designed to do just that and is inexpensive.

Carnewal.com

sassofono

I use the Porsche charger and I'm fully satisfied.
Marco 993 tt

Pete Lech

You can get a battery tender at Wally Mart for $25. When I bought mine, it looked identical to the one from Performance Products that I had ben using in my '85 for several years. It is UL approved.

One caution - as the trunk light stays on unless it is latched tightly, you have to close it all the way. I made a short extention cord out of fairly light wire, just long enough to run it out the side of the hood when needed. When not being used, it tucks under the carpeting.

993Widebody

Here's a tip, just push down the front hood latch with your finger, the contact for the light will disengage and the light will go off. This way you don't need to close the hood on a thick extension cord.

95C4VanIsle

Not to hijack the thread but I didn't want to start a new one since the issue being discussed is related. I purchased the Porsche battery charger and put it on my car for the first time this weekend. The red light has been on constantly for the last 24 hours. The instructions say that when fully charged the light will go out. The battery is new this summer and I have had no issues with it. Is the light being on for this amount of time normal or is it such a low charge rate that it may take quite a while to reach full charge?

TIA

sp250

My battery charger's red light sometimes remains on for several days - I too thought at first that something must be wrong, but it eventually went out, and it appears to be doing its job. As you say, it must be a very low charge rate.

Joe

troos

Bret,
Do you have the trunk lid shut, or at least the light removed? That can be enough to keep the charger from sliding over to maintenance mode.
Speaking of maintenance mode, I'm a big believer in Batter Minder. When the battery is charged, they then send pulses to desulfate it. Sulfates building up are one of the major causes of batteries weakening and losing life and power.

Mike in Chi

Been using the plug into the lighter jack Porsche charger for years. The light may stay on for days, then be off for days. Does a great job with no battery damage.

I too can leave the car for weeks with out a charger. No issues. But for longer periods (winter storage, I need the charger).

I whooped when I saw Viken's name, then checked the dates... Ah well.

95C4VanIsle

Tom, Joe and Mke

The trunk is shut, and I've never had any electrical issues with the battery (new or old, except the old one needed replacement). The charger is running through a slightly open window so there shouldn't be a drain from a light in the trunk area. I'll just monitor it for the next day or so. Hopefully it will perform as Joe has described. If not I will repost here.

Thanks for the responses.

It was an old thread, sorry to have raised your hopes about Viken.


Thanks

112344

I used Porsche chargers in both my 1989 911 and my 1995 993 last winter. The kind that plug into the cigarette lighter. Had the same problem mentioned above with the red light on one charger staying on and neither the red or green light coming on the other. I switched them one car to the other and also put them in different electrical plugs with the same result. Since both were new chargers, I figured both couldn't be bad so I let them in place over the winter. Guess what -- two dead batteries this past spring. This year I bought two Battery Tenderers Plus. Work perfectly. The red lights on both were on while the batteries charged up, the green blinking light comes on at 88 percent charge, and the green light is steady at full charge with just trickle as necessary thereafter. Not sure yet what went wrong with the Porsche chargers, since others have used them successfully.

Arena993

I had the same issue with the PORSCHE charger I got with my new car. It stayed red fo 24 hours. At last it went into maitenance mode. Here is the charger I have. BTW when I get time my Deltran Battery Tender is going back on.