I lived in Alaska for many years and quickly learned the hard way to use a strong battery and keep it in good condition for reliability in long cold winters.
I used to drive a Dodge CTD personal vehicle 20k+ miles yearly.

I retired to Hawaii with its warmer climate and still put an 810 CCA (the largest I could find locally) battery into my smaller light weight Dak after first moving here.

I have suffered a dead battery a few times recently.
I don't drive nearly as much anymore with the Dak parked alongside the house for weeks / few months at a time.
The battery is 7 years old, but still checks out as being in very good condition.

Either the Dak has some equipment that has a low slow drain when not in use, or sitting for several weeks / few months lets the battery drain.
Thoughts?

 

Get yourself a good meter, if you don't already have one, and put it between the positive battery post, and the battery terminal. (so the meter completes the circuit) See how many amps the truck is drawing when its just sitting there. Should be less than one amp, I think.

 

OK,
When I connect my MM's Amp terminals across the connected battery terminals, the MM's leads heat up.
Looks as if no damage was done to the MM, plus I have a second one..
It looks as if I'll need to disconnect the auto's leads from the battery, then check for current draw through those leads while the ignition is off.

After a bit of checking, then, I'll need to do a "parasitic draw test", if there is any draw when the ignition is in the off position.
I've never seen it in this vehicle before, but I've seen other vehicles with equipment that has a constant low power drain that can discharge its battery over time when not run.
This vehicle never sat so long between usages before this epidemic, which may be the problem.
The battery may be just loosing its charge from sitting.
Gotta go to town tomorrow.
I'll check it out after that.
Still open to thoughts.

 

Yeah, old battery.... The minor draw from keep-alive memory may be enough to kill it, given enough time. I would expect that would take some time though, measured in weeks.... (considering the battery passed its draw test?)

 

If you're not driving much, then you need a trickle charger. They make solar ones that plug into the lighter and lay on the dash, but make sure it has a diode to keep it from discharging the battery when it's dark.

 

The battery may be 7 years old, but came with a 6 year warranty.
I'm so used to never having battery problems that any seen monumental.
The car had sit for several weeks, maybe a couple of months.
I started it and drove to the grocery store, 3 mi. highway with a couple on side streets.

I turned the headlights on while on the highway, forgot to turn them off while in the store, maybe 45 min to an hour.
Starter would only click, would not self charge enough to start after sitting for an hour after turning the lights off.
Had to call M'Lady to come give me a jump, fired right up, ...embarrassing.
That does qualify as battery abuse.
Normally, I can get away with it.

My old charger died a few months ago, bought a new one that has a "recondition" setting that I've used a couple of times over a couple of days.
Not sure how well it works, never seen or used it before.

I'll hook the new charger up at least every week/month or so.
It trickles into a full bat.
That should keep the bat up and usable, ...if I remember..

 

The solar trickle charger would be ideal for you I think. Hook it up, and forget about it, till you need to drive away. Sunshine shouldn't be a problem in Hawaii.

 

I use the Battery Tender solar charger. I wired it up to charge via the 7-way trailer plug.

 

The battery finally began to run down after sitting only a week.
And, the car began to be hard to start and keep running without using the gas pedal.
I began to think the computer or something it controls was also going bad.
The battery was 8 years old, 3 years beyond the warranty.
So, I bought a new one.

To my amazement, all the problems went away.
It again runs very well, for an old beater.
The new battery fixed everything.
I've never had a battery going out affect idling and similar even after being charged up.

I'm now thinking that battery cells were dying.
The whole thing was going T-U.

I'm now in the middle of back flushing the cooling system and adding a new 50/50 solution of coolant.
I'll have practically a new vehicle pretty soon.

With the way vehicle prices are going, I'm now thinking of having some minor body straightening done, ... maybe ...???