Here's a question for the folks who use their car sparingly (weekends, nice weather, etc.).

How old is your battery?

Mine is between 9-10 years old and still going strong. I keep thinking "I should probably replace it". It's a sealed unit from Duracell. I disconnect it whenever I park it in the garage, so the only time it sees use are the days I take the car out. Never used a tender on it.

Wondering if I should call Guinness or if this is common with cars that don't see much use?

 

That policy changes the battery's "history", to essentially, its shelf life. Very different from discharge/recharge cycles, especially with deep discharges and long periods of time spent sitting flat dead waiting for the next recharge, as often happens with seldom-used cars. Probably even a longer time than what a tender or occasional trickle charger would produce. So no, I wouldn't consider it all that unusual, although what you're doing is certainly the right thing to do.

 

We keep the batteries of all our vehicles that aren't DDs (11 vehicles plus a motorhome, so 18 batteries total) on Battery Tenders. We frequently get 12-15 years. out of them. Also, we swap out liquid acid batteries for AGM or lithium ASAP. Nothing worse than having a liquid acid battery fail on you and spew sulfuric acid fumes all over the cables.

 

Hard to believe, I know, but the Interstate battery in my IROC is almost 14 years old. The car is always garaged, and in the Winter when I don't drive it frequently, I'll put a charger on it to keep it from going flat.

 

When my T/A & Colorado sit in my garage, I plug in the Battery Tenders. In Winter, it is all the time.

 

The Deka battery in my F*ORD is 11 years old. It was 5 years-old before I started using a battery tender. Still going strong. The Deka battery in my Firebird is 4 years-old.
So far so good...