Quote:
Originally Posted by XB GS 351 Coupe
I have never heard this, I have been told quite the opposite.
I have been keeping my classic cars and bikes on trickle chargers since the mid 90's, generally get 6-10 years out of my batteries. 10 years being the record and that was a genuine Harley Davidson branded Battery, the bike was always on the charger unless it was being ridden. I fitted the battery in July 1998 and replaced it in 2008 with another genuine HD battery.
Had a another freak battery that was fitted to my 2007 BF GT purchased new, the battery was replaced in June 2019, that car was also permanently connected to a CTEC 800mA smart battery charger.
Not sure if the CTEC runs a discharge cycle. All my vehicles do get driven quite regularly.
I will however explore this idea further, but I sincerely doubt that a Battery chargers specifically designed to maintain batteries will kill a $250 extreme duty battery in 12 months to the point where it will no longer accept or hold a charge when none of my other 7 car/bike/mower batteries have any issue with the same charger.
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Its the 'float' part of the cycle with these smart chargers where the voltage is elevated, where its just maintaining the voltage at a slightly elevated point, doing this over a long period of time is what causes issues with lead acid batteries where its sitting there at 13.5V or there abouts basically just cancelling out its self discharge.
With my cars I just charge them up every now and again and then remove the charger after its sat overnight and charged up fully.
While its a $250 'premium extreme duty' battery and given this thread and everyone's experiences as of recently, I'm hesitant to recommend Century anymore or call their products 'premium'.
Its still a lead acid battery at the end of the day and plays by the same rules as the rest of the lead acid batteries.
Maybe the Century batteries are just more sensitive to this? Or maybe they've just turned to **** for some reason.
Given you drive your cars regularly I doubt its causing the problems with the Century batteries in your specific case but if you had a garage queen sitting there for months on end on float then I'd start pointing fingers.