i have a super short commute ( 8 min ). My battery went dead today. Is it possible to notice the battery getting low in the future ? I have a gas gauge, oil gauge, temp gauge, but no battery gauge. would it help to get one ?

 

Buy a battery maintainer instead.

 

I would suggest you try to drive the car until it's completely warmed up (at least 20 miles) at least once a week. Otherwise you will soon be posting about the white goop in your oil filler cap/tube.

 

http://slickdeals.net/permadeal/1064...ery-maintainer

 

Thanks for the warning. I'll read about it

 

And ... dead again.


Why the hell can't cars display how much charge is in my battery ?

 

If you cant plug in your car at night, get a battery pack and keep it in your frunk.

Something like this:
http://www.target.com/p/wagan-900-am...g&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

You need a maintainer (CTek MUS 4.3)



and perhaps a voltmeter.

 

 

I dont mind getting one.
Kind of a hassle plugging in my gasoline car to keep it running but ...

Is there some kind of wireless voltimeter that I could attach to the battery and my phone alerts me when the battery is low ?

 

would something that plugs into the cigarette lighter actually work ?




http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12V-Batte...-/181210624800

 

I found these on Amazon... although they strike me as a bit curious because they will require some power themselves to work so in a way they may just make things slightly worse. The both claim to have smartphone apps, although the first one is the only one that I could actually find on the iTunes store.

The first one uses the OBD-II connector. The positioning of the port in our cars would cause it to hang down near your left leg... I don't know if that would be a problem through.

As others state, I'd think with the cold climate in your area that batteries and oil are already under stress, so a longer drive every few days would make for both good battery and oil health. Our 997.2 DFI engines are very high compression engines (12.5/1), much higher than most cars, making them require much more power to start than most anything else out there so I'd guess frequent starts without much drive time would pose a challenge for them.

 

Thanks. Those looks great !!

I was googling wireless voltmeter and got nowhere.
Car Battery monitor was better ! Thanks.

 

A volt meter is not going to tell you how much capacity is left in your battery. Theoretically it could show 12 volts and still have no capacity to start the engine.

On the other hand if your battery just won't hold a charge anymore or if it is being drained by some sort of fault it would show less than 12 volts, or even zero. Of course that won't fix your problem.

Maybe you just need a new battery. How old is yours?

Battery life is dependent on a lot of things including length of your daily drive, (short in your case which definitely doesn't help), age, loading and maintenance. (Yes even maintenance free batteries require some maintenance especially if your car is inactive for long periods of time).

I'd buy a cheap digital multimeter from radio shack and simply measure the battery voltage across the terminals. It should be around 12 volts.

Start the car and now it should be 13 volts or slightly more (if not your charging system is faulty).

If that checks out... are the terminals tight and corrosion free? Is the battery exterior wet or leaking? If so it could be draining it to ground.

If everything checks out and you buy a charger keep in mind that if it has died a few times it may not be able to hold a charge anymore.

 

a battery with 12v is actually pretty well discharged.

should be more like 12.6 or so.