Hi Guys,

I'm new here and just purchased my first diesel truck. It's a 2012 Ram 2500 4x4 SLT. I work over seas 9 months out of the year so the truck gets parked a lot. In fact, my last truck was 12 years old and only had about 90,000 miles on it when I traded it for my new 2500.

My question is: should I pull the battery and put it on a trickle charger/tender while I'm out of the country?

I get home about ever 6 to 8 weeks and will only drive the truck for 7 to 14 days at a time while I'm home. I do a lot of highway driving and not much running around town stuff.

Thanks for any and all comments and suggestions!

 

My truck can sit for a couple weeks at a time in subzero weather. I just leave it plugged in but it doesn't hurt it at all. I just got rid of my 04.5 with the original batteries under the same conditions. My ATV's, snowmobiles, snowblowers, etc. can sit for months in storage so I just disconnect the negative lead on the battery. When I hook it back up they usually pop right off.

 

Since this is not a one time deal, yes your battery life will benefit from a battery maintainer/tender. No need to get an expensive one, but you don't want just a "trickle charger", you want one that will monitor the charge level and shut off when fully charged.
No need to unhook anything. Assuming both batteries are same age, type, condition, just hook the tender up to one battery, it will maintain both. Can get them for under $50.

 

I picked up one at Harbor Freight for under $20 earlier this year and mounted it to my RV, so far so good. +1 on no need to remove the batteries. That would be an unnecessary PITB.

 

Thanks for the replies. I'll pick up a battery tender.

 

Can you hook battery tenders up to only one battery without disconnecting from truck wiring system.

ehow.com says to disconnect each battery from the truck with two battery vehicles. Just having to deal with this right now.

To be safe I unhooked positive from one battery and hooked minder to it.

Can I just hook the charger to the other battery without unhooking positive, since the other battery will be at a different charge level would not reconnect it until battery 2 is fully charged.

But this would be much easier if I did not have to unhook either battery and by hooking to one both would charge.

First vehicle with two batteries. Love it for pulling and hauling.

Thanx

 

It's my understanding that you just hook the tender to the + and - terminals on either battery, both will charge as they are wired in parallel.