Porsche Battery Maintainer

I just bought one for my 996/986. Can I leave it on while the car cover is on? Any ventilation problems? Where do you guys run the wires through after plugging it in the lighter socket? Do you leave the window slightly open? I never used one of these before. Thanks

I've been using one for the past couple months and it's worth every penny in my opinion. I run it thru the passenger side window (left slightly open). No problem using it with a car cover because the battery will slowly vent the gasses thru a vent tube on the bottom of the 996.

Is this the same as a trickle charger? If not where can they be purchased on the net and how much.

Yes, it's the Porsche battery maintainer. I paid $52 for it two months ago. Sun Coast Porsche I believe. Good luck.

I just run it under the bottom of the door. Doesn't seem to get pinched, and works fine that way on our Boxster and tt. And, I leave the cover on. AS

Ran mine on my 986S for a few years and now on my C4S. Put it through the window/frame and did not even bother leaving the window down a bit....never really pinched it much. Put on the car cover and forget about it (good luck). Car springs to life in the spring as if it was only turned off yesterday.

On my Boxster there is a notch in the bottom of the door weather seal for the cord. Jeff

I use the Porsche maintainer with the window slightly cracked. I do that more for a little air getting into the car. Like others I keep mine on all the time, and it works great over the last 4 winters. I made sure the battery was full of water, not leaking, vented properly, and monthly I check water level, plus condition of battery. Overkill, perhaps, several years ago, I had the battery leak, and it caused a slight problem. Lastly, I do leave my hood slightly ajar.

I've had the same battery since 1998 using the trickle charger. No kidding!

A battery maintainer isn't quite the same thing as a trickle charger. Well a decent one isn't at least. A trickle charger does just what it suggests. It continuously supplies a small charge. It does that even when the battery is fully charged. Although that's not ideal, as long as the trickle current is quite low a car battery will usually put up with it. A decent battery maintainer will charge the battery only until it gets to a certain voltage. Ideally that voltage would be temperature dependant but doubt it's too important with a car battery. Different maintainers may do different things when the battery reaches the fully charged voltage. Some just turn off the charge until the voltage drops to a certain point others may go into a voltage float mode. Real fancy ($$$) ones seem to use clever pulsing techniques and others may do other things I suppose. I'm sure it's all very scientific but it seems to me that there's a certain amount of black magic involved with battery charging in general. For $80 I would hope and assume that the Porsche battery maintainer is not just a trickle charger. Colin P.S How odd that the spell checker doesn't like "Porsche" and has no suggestions for a correction.

What happens if there is a power surge? Will the charger get fried or the car? Or both for that matter??? any ideas??

Depends on the power surge and the charger I suppose but my guess is that it would take a pretty awful maintainer and a very large surge to do any damage to the car. I don't think I've ever heard of anyone having such a problem. Maintainers have, by design, a regulator built in and any normal kind of surges should be taken care of as part of normal operation. Big surges should just blow a fuse or something. If it's something you're worried about just plug it into a surge protected power bar. A lightning strike might be a whole different story of course but if that happened I suspect you would have much bigger things to worry about. Colin

Is it supposed to have green indicator when it is fully charged? Mine started with a solid red led and now it has no indicator light whatsoever. I lost the instructions, so what does that mean?

Since my car is in the garage for its first winter with me as its owner, this is sounding like a good idea. What is the exact "part" name I should look for? Can I get this anywhere other than my dealer? Thanks guys.

BMW has one that works! It may be less $$$. I don't remember. It's a lighter socket model.

www.performanceproducts.com Schumacher Mity Mite Battery Charger on sale for $33.10. For vehicles that aren't driven everyday, or storage for the winter. 1.5 amp 12 volt automatic battery charger. I just ordered one.

Colin "P.S How odd that the spell checker doesn't like "Porsche" and has no suggestions for a correction." Hit the "Add" button on your dropdown menu. It will add the word to YOUR dictionary.