Hello Everyone -
I am looking for some advices how to keep the battery of my 997.2 4S in good health - My busy life make me driving my 911 only during the weekends and I was wondering which is the best charger.
I saw on suncoastparts the Porsche Pro Battery Maintainer, but I saw some comments about the CTEK.
Which one should I use?
Thanks in advance.
Riccardo

 

Either is fine. Plug into the cigarette lighter, close door on the thin cord and lock it.

 

I use the CTEK in the cigarette lighter, but I crack the window open a little for the cord. Works just fine. Don't forget to lock it.

 

I also use the CTek with the cigarette plug run under the door.
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I said this on other threads but I had a super broken wrist and was recovering from surgery the first 5 months or so of the year, so my car was on a tender off the cigarette lighter the whole time. It was really my only choice because of my wrist. I had not ability to get to the battery, so I went with this simple solution in my garage.
A few times since, I have gone out of town or not driven the car for a week or so. When that happens, I make it so the chord wraps around the shifter to remind me in case the day I take it off the charger is an early AM commute.

 

I use the Battery Tender brand on most of my cars but also have a CTek one. Either is fine. I like the Battery Tenders because they offer multi-bank chargers in the same unit so for the cars parked on the lift and under it, I only need 1 charger control unit and then 2 small cords come off of it - one for each bar. Each bank is charged and maintained independently. I have 2 of the 2 bank chargers (one is permanently mounted in the boat for the dual batteries in it, then a few other single ones.

CTek makes the charger that Porsche OEMs as their own.

 

Porsche provided a notch on the bottom of the door weather stripping where you can run the cable without leaving the window cracked.

 

I’m fairly new to Porsche , so the idea to lock it after on battery tender is to decrease the drain?? Anyone can elaborate on locking vs. no locking once on tender, since I like to not lock the porsche cause I sometime need to grab things from the Porsche and open the doors of the Porsche for different reason and create inconvenience having to go grab key to unlock etc. and plus it’s in the garage.

 

Noco Genius 3500...Works great...Found CTEK was not as user friendly nor as informative in terms of their website.

 

locking the doors reduces the drain on the battery

 

It's not necessary to lock the car while on a battery tender. The CTEK or Porsche tender will cycle the battery by letting it draw down a bit periodically and then recharge to full. In between , it maintains a lower charge rate. My understanding is that this cycling is better for the battery. So, any slight draw difference between locked or unlocked is irrelevant while on the tender.

 

+1

Lock it if not on a tender - doesn't matter if you lock it or not when on a tender. All of mine on tenders I leave unlocked. The maintenance lights on the chargers will occasionally cylce from green to red, charge it a bit then go back to green.

 

If you’re using the car once or twice a week (on weekends), do you need to still keep it on a maintainer during the week? I have the Porsche maintainer, but only use it if I skip using the car on the weekend.

 

Locking the car forces the car to go into "sleep mode" after a few days to further reduce the normal parasitic draw. When on the tender, with the doors locked, it also brings the battery to a full charge, faster.

 

The more you use the tender, the longer your battery will last. It's super easy to plug in. <60 seconds.

 

^^^ For me under one drive a week = on a tender. Over 1 drive a week not on a tender. I have a work situation where I work from home a lot, so I usually only commute 50 miles round trip 2-3 times a week. To me, that is more than enough but if I decide to drive my wife's EV or whatever and the car sits over 7 days, I will plug it in since it is so simple with the cigarette adaptor.