Silly to charge a brand new battery?

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Bought a brand new Interstate 24F from Costco today for my Odyssey. Got it home and immediately threw a Battery Tender on it to "top it off". I did the same thing two weeks ago for my Mazda which also just got a brand new battery. Am I being too OCD or is this a good practice assuming the batteries might be sitting without a float charge for a month or so? I don't drive long trips at least with my car so I wanted to be sure the battery had a good start on life.
 
I don't bother. If the voltage is that low I pick a different battery, don't want one that was sitting around for long with depressed voltage. I mean that I take a multimeter with me in any case that is not sudden/unexpected.
 
Actually had a parts store suggest I charge the battery when I was replacing the alternator. The idea was the battery was likely discharged and expecting it to charge the weakened / dead battery wasn't a good idea.
 
Originally Posted by atikovi
An hour of driving will top it off just the same. If your alternator can't handle the wear and tear, start shopping for a new one too.


Depends on the car. A lot of newer cars won't fully charge the battery anymore so they can get better CAFE numbers and the batteries die early because they don't get fully charged.
 
Doesn't hurt, but to say that it's going to he extended the life of an alternator by any measureable amount from just one charge cycle is just silly.
 
I do it as standard practice. And then as part of maintenance I occasionally put the battery on a maintainer to "top off" during its life. I figure it can't hurt, and easy to do.
 
Originally Posted by Sayjac
I do it as standard practice. And then as part of maintenance I occasionally put the battery on a maintainer to "top off" during its life. I figure it can't hurt, and easy to do.

I did that to my Panasonic battery that came in my Mazda. Still only lasted 3 years.
 
Not on my cars. I do have a battery for the lawn tractor and that seems to always need to be topped off if it has sat for a few months without usage. But my cars tend to see hours of usage per week.
 
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