Charging battery with Optimate

[reg]

Discovered that after two weeks in the garage hiding from the cold the battery was flat. I have an Optimate that I use for charging bike batteries, but it has worked ok on cars before. Looking at the book I find the battery is somewhere in the rear compartment (haven't actually looked yet) but there are 'jump terminals' in the rear fuse box. Is it going to be safe to plug an Optimate into these terminals as the manual warns not to use chargers but knowing how gentle the Optimate is I am thinking it may be ok. Otherwise it will be an unceremonious jump off of the beater with the other half asking 'are you using the old car to fix the new one?' Also has anyone used Optimates and not diconnected from their car?

On the up side I needed an excuse to drive it more:D

[kevinpsw]

The battery is under the space-saver spare wheel in the front compartment!

[reg]

Doh!

Show's how much attention I was paying to the book, I guess I saw the 'jump terminals' in the rear and assumed they had stuck it in there!

It's Friday.

[DAVEMAT]

Optimate is no problem, I use one for my bike and one for my car, I'm usually away for quite long periods at a time, the only problem I ever had was when I switched off the main breaker to my garage before going away, Double Doh!!!!

[rsevo6]

If your battery is flat, I don't think the Optimate will be able to revive it (only the most expensive one has a "charge" capability but still with relatively low current.
Regular Optimate is only capable to maintain charge, not able to charge a flat battery.

[reg]

I am going to jump it tomorrow then go out for a drive. After this will plug the Optimate in a fingers crossed that the battery holds it's charge. I have used the Optimate before to recover my Integra it was pretty good, expecially as it's supposed to only really be for bikes.

[AR]

Same thing happened to mine, and I cured it by buying a new battery.

Fingers crossed it's gone over a week without use and still holds its charge.

Its winter after all.

Cheers,

AR

[Senninha]

It will depend on the Optimate you have, as some complete a discharge and recharge cycle so may well bring a tired battery back to good health.

Alternatively, do as I do and find any excuse to get out and drive it!

[mcibuk]

I can confirm Optimate is OK left connected - I've been using one throughout winters for last 3 years.

[MattS]

I've been using a solar trickle charger for the last 18 months and this seems to work well, even if it's not too sunny. For any period of longer than about a week, I've disconnected the battery and used the solar charger to keep the battery topped up.

A small word of warning with the solar chargers available: many advertise that they can be used to charge the battery via the fag lighter socket - this won't work on the NSX and a lot of other cars (due to a diode perhaps allowing only a one-way current) and so you have to use the croc clips straight on to the battery.