we left town for 3 months and on our return the battery was dead. it took a recharge and works fine, but when i asked the dealership how best to avoid it, i got contradictory advice. one said to use a trickle charger; another said to have a neighbor run it once a month. advice?
If you know you will be gone for a long time like this (and the car is within a convenient reach of an outlet) you can use a battery tender. I use this one (they are around $60) and seem to be well a respected brand... If you will be away without access to power, you can carry a simple jump starter to easily get going again: The Clarity doesn't have a conventional starter so it is not difficult to 'jump' it. Keep in mind that the worst thing for a lead acid battery is for it to remain in a discharged state. Permanent damage eventually results and it will not recover with charging.
I’d recommend a trickle charger/maintainer such as a Battery Tender. That way it wouldn’t be necessary to ask someone to babysit the car for you. I had the same thing happen after leaving the car to sit for 6 months. A lithium jump pack (also recommended) brought it to life. Then I drove it for 15-20 minutes, which isn’t actually necessary, but since the vehicle was scheduled to take me to work at zero dark thirty the following morning I wanted to be sure everything was functioning properly. I’ve also left the car for 5-6 weeks on a couple of occasions and the 12V battery was not discharged after that amount of time.
