Rare1

Has anyone installed a battery trickle charger in their engine compartment and spliced it into the block heater power wire? In this way the batteries would be kept warm and charged whenever the ambient temperature was low enough to need the block heater. Would this be a good thing for DC to offer as standard or option?

Related, and just thinking out loud because I don't have a starting problem: Has anyone trickle charged overnight when you anticipate low temps and noticed an improvement in starting the next morning?

Budde94

I plug my truck in anytime it gets down to about 40 degrees. Always starts like a dream. I spend some time in upper Michagan and never had any problems. I do run a lot of audio equipment on job sites so I know when my batteries are getting bad and replace them early. I usually get 5 years off a set of batteries. It would be nice to have the security of knowing that your batteries are full all the time though. I agree.

SRTchris

i had battery blankets on a truck i had that pluged in-line with the block heater cord, i think a charger would get pounded from just normal driving and let you down.

Sea:\>Drive

I would think you could overcome this with a small marine type charger like boats use to keep house batteries full while on shore power (120v). If you were in a miserable climate like our brothers in the great white north, or near the border it may be a good idea.

tool

Well being a "brother from the great white North" I find that hillarious. Especially after spending a fair bit of time in the eastern states, New England areas and finding it to be damp, cold and "miserable"


Could be a decent idea I suppose, might contribute to longer battery life keeping them full all the time I suppose? Don't see why they couldn't produce a sealed unit with overcharge protection and perhaps mounted for shock absorbtion. I know lots of people who keep trickle chargers on their farm tractors in cold weather for this reason, just hook 'em up when the plug the block heater in.


Of course you have to remember that as a factory or dealer installed option a unit that you could probably rig for $30 yourself would be more like $700 from D.C

Just look at the junk factory stereos they sell you for $1000 when you can buy a better aftermarket unit for like $200