R129 storage, battery and roof issues

[ABravo]

hi I am quite new to the forum and looking for some guidance.
Tomorrow I will pick up a "new" R129, it will be rarely driven as I have a Cls and clk convertible already. I was going to simply disconnect the battery (as I do with the clk) and leave it in the garage most of the time. ( no power supply to garage) . However I am reading all sorts of horror stories about roofs/windows going out of sync. I am clear I must not jump start it if the battery is flat, now.
Can you give me any advice. I'm up to
1) park on drive ( not under cover ) and leave an intelligent charger plugged in
2) leave it in garage with two batteries in parallel, obviously disconnect before starting
3) disconnect battery and risk going through whole reset process every time, not too worried about resetting windows but roof sounds less clear.

I would really welcome your advice on this
Many thanks in advance

 

[Doodle]

Leaving it on an intelligent charger would be the best option. I presume from the description above your garage has no power in it?

 

[Sp!ke]

I have a R129 and am in a similar position.

I have found that with my new Bosch battery, it can last for 3 months in the garage between use and start up just fine. My previous elderly battery would last only 2-3 weeks and then required a booster pack to start the car. (which caused no ill effects I might add).

I should point out that when in the garage, I do not bother locking the car (which would also enable the alarm). As its a soft top, there seems little point in locking it when in the garage. If someone has broken into the garage, the fabric roof isnt going to stop them getting in anyway.

 

[tanuie]

Same as Spike, i had the battery jump start from a power pack from the AA,
no after effects at all.

 

[ivan1983]

I have a battery isolator installed on mine. Its effectively just a switch that disconnect the the negative terminal. Each time I use the car I have to reset the windows which effective resets the roof.

My car has a tracker which I haven figured out where it is to disconnect so if left it kills the battery reasonably quickly

 

[BTB 500]

It's pretty handy having power in the garage (for lights, even if nothing else). Would you be able to get a cable run to it?

I leave mine on a maintenance charger all the time now.

 

[Major774]

If you can feed some power into your garage then get a CTEK battery charger... This will keep your battery in good shape.

 

[aabravo]

Thank you for all the comments. I am planning on running power to the garage this weekend and leave it on a trickle charger. The slight challenge is the public (but rarely used access path between my garden and garage. (But I have a plan )
I might even get a new battery to be on the safe side, Halfords apparently do a life time guarantee now, which could be useful, if I mistreat the battery. ( they have been good at replacing them in the past)
I use an isolator on the clk convertible but I think the the minimal use has made it drop some codes, the SRS has come on now. Resetting tomorrow i hope.
The original plan was to just put an isolator on the SL. Glad to hear those who have done this , have had no real issues. This will be final resort if power supply doesn't work. Thanks again.

 

[aabravo]

Ivan the window reset is just the holding up and down for 10 seconds and never any issues with roof ?
Presume roof is left up or hard top on?
Locked or unlocked. ?

 

[BTB 500]

Thank you for all the comments. I am planning on running power to the garage this weekend and leave it on a trickle charger. The slight challenge is the public (but rarely used access path between my garden and garage. (But I have a plan )
I might even get a new battery to be on the safe side, Halfords apparently do a life time guarantee now, which could be useful, if I mistreat the battery. ( they have been good at replacing them in the past)
I use an isolator on the clk convertible but I think the the minimal use has made it drop some codes, the SRS has come on now. Resetting tomorrow i hope.
The original plan was to just put an isolator on the SL. Glad to hear those who have done this , have had no real issues. This will be final resort if power supply doesn't work. Thanks again.

I mentioned before that I use a maintenance charger (AccuMate in my case) ... the battery in my SL is now over 11 years old, so it has more than paid for itself in that way alone

 

[ivan1983]

Reset is something along the lines of both windows down all the way and hold for 10 seconds and up again.

I have tried it with both hard top on and soft top but never with the top down and I have the car locked when disconnecting the battery as the windows dont seal properly with power.

The only other thing you have to do which doesnt affect the roof is rotate the the steering wheel from lock to lock to calibrate the steering angle sensor for the traction control to be happy

 

[aabravo]

Thanks Ivan sounds the same as the clk re steering angle sensor. Really tempted to just put isolator on it like the clk. I assume you lock car,(so windows up) then disconnect battery. Negative terminal.

 

[ivan1983]

Yep, I open the boot with the key and disconnect the battery to avoid the possibility of locking the keys in the boot

 

[aabravo]

Done it. Isolator fitted. Good as gold now. Eventually will get new battery

 

[MB-SL500]

Many comments above about isolator (trickle charger).
Can anyone recommend one? Links would be useful.

 

[aabravo]

I use an isolater. Basically a battery kill switch. Works perfectly now