You have to disconnect at least the negative terminal and hook it right up to the battery. Yes many people have successfully gotten away with hooking it up to the engine bay but that's just wrong for the charger to accurately "read" the battery.

 

Having a degree in electrical engineering, I can say with 100% accuracy that it doesn't matter if you hook up in the front or directly to the battery, your battery tender won't be able to tell the difference. If the car were a couple hundred feet long, that would be a different matter...

 

I hook mine to positive terminal under the hood and a ground. I've had no issues with a trickle charge setting to keep the battery fully charged. Wether or not this approach is wrong would depend upon the charger you are using and its instructions for its use.

 

Ditto. Works perfectly.

 

I've done both with the CTEK 3300. No problems either way. I eventually put the included terminal/plug assembly on the battery terminals & that is where it is currently hooked up.

 

This seems a lot more complicated than using the cigarrete lighter in the car for the tender. $30 from Sears.

 

This is OK unless the cigarette lighter socket has 'switched' power. My truck has switched power to the sockets, my Corvette doesn't. I use the socket adapter in the 'Vette.

 

IMHO, if the cable running from the jump points to the battery are beefy enough to start the car, I can't see how <2 amps is going to make a bit of difference on a trickle charger...

 

I have mine under the hood also, and have used the C-Tek to recondition the battery and have no problems at all. Measure the voltage drop between the battery and under the hood, and see what it is.

 

I guess I'm different, I don't know squat about watts, volts, hertz, I know a little bit about hurts donuts though... I put my Battery Tender in the trunk right to the battery where it's in a more stable warm environment, got 'em hooked to all my cars and they're expensive buggers to replace if subjected to the harsh winter temps and wind.

 

I'm actually reconditioning mine right now with the C-Tek from under the hood terminals. It seems to be working just fine so far. I'll update this tomorrow then. Sir Isaac Newtons favorite joke was, "Watts a volt?".......

 

It was done in a few hours, and it worked just fine from under the hood. Obviously, you need to make sure the terminals are tight too though.

 

If you go to Hooters, is it best to hook up in the front or in the rear? :yup: