silvervett

I am at JFK airport and have a little over an hour before my plane takes off for TX. My RX400H has been sitting in the garage since 1/28/07 with the Deltran battery maintainer

http://batterytender.com/faqs.php

on it I'll report back and let everyone know if it kept the hybrid battery charged as well as the regular battery.

By the way using a regular charger on a battery can kill a battery by cooking it from overcharging it. I do not recommend using a regular charger for long term storage

Update I missed my plane. I got to the airport over three hours early because I didn't want to miss my plane if I got stuck in traffic. I was using the computer clock to keep track of the time but the darn thing was one hour slow because I didn't change it for daylight savings time (I thought windows did this automatically). I logged on the kill some time while I waited and unfortunally I didn't hear it when they announced the plane was ready to board because I had head phones on so I could listen to Old radio shows like Dragnet, the Whistler etc.

http://www.otr.net/

I got a later flight at 8PM and won't be in Texas till 11:25 PM which means I won't be in my house till after 12:30 AM. No matter how tired I am I really want to see how the battery tender worked so it will be the first thing I check but won't do any report on how well it worked until a day or two later. If this thing works as well as I think it will it should come in handy for people who do not drive their cars on a regular basis. I suspect that there may be others like me that may leave their cars parked for a few weeks a a time

silvervett

I'll keep it short because it has been a long day and I am tired. I left my house nat 9AM EST and got to my house in TX at 5AM EST. As tired as I was I had to see how the charger worked. The car sat from 1/28/07 till 3/31/07 and when i urned the key it was fine. The ready light came right on and the engine started a few seconds later. The hybrid battery was two bars from the top which is about the same charge it had when I left it. So the verdict is if you need to leave your car unattended for a long period of time the Deltran battery tender seems to do the job fine

jerryray

Have you left it for this long before?

Did your battery go dead at some point?

I use the battery tender jr all the time for other battery maintenance.

I thought I read someone had left their RX400 for 30 days and it was fine?

silvervett

I bought he house in Texas in mid October and got the RX shortly after. I drove it to TX late Oct. and drove it from Oct 31st till Nov 20 when I flew back to NY for Thanksgiving. I didn't put the maintainer on the car because I planned on returning on Dec 8th. Unfortunately when I returned I discovered my NY house had been broken into and the guy was still in the house when I arrived. I helped the police capture the guy but had to remain available in NY for any court proceedings. The car was left unattended from 11/20/06 till 1/20/07. There was a little life left in the battery but not enough to do much so I had to call Lexus roadside assistance. The guy was pretty much clueless but he eventually figured out where the battery was and got me started. When I left the car the second time on 1/28/07 I came prepared with the Deltran. I am driving back to NY on Sun 4/1/07 because I plan on spending most of my time in NY during the summer.

jerryray

OK, so 2 months and the battery was nearly dead.

I have to look in the book and see what the manual says.

You don't by chance have an aftermarket alarm installed?

silvervett

Nothing added all stock. After two months there was enough power in the battery to make the interior lights come on but they were dim.