Morris Minor Owners Club

I was recently told that modern batteries ‘don’t like’ old type battery chargers and are ruined by them. I’ve been using the same old charger for decades so I’m a little concerned.

Is there any logical reason for this or is it just pub talk?

The link below covers battery installation & maintenance including charging.

https://www.yuasa.co.uk/info/technical/ ... batteries/

Thanks Phil. If I’m reading it correctly my charger should be ok as it has set voltage wth variable current.

Spot on.

Pub talk.

I think there may be something in it for charging the modern AGM batteries, which I think are fitted to vehicles that have the stop/start technology and an abundance of computers to control the vehicle.

I believe that you cannot even just replace a battery on one of these cars without a computer, there is a 2d bar code on the battery which enables its characteristics for charging etc to be programmed into the cars system, probably a computer required to charge the battery.

I think before clipping an old fashioned charger onto one of these you would need to be careful or check. I have one of the CTEK intelligent chargers and that has an AGM battery setting on it.

Fortunately none of the above rubbish applies to the Minor.

Such rubbish on some of these recent cars. I got suspicious when they started with no proper spare tyre, then no proper handbrake and this stop/start nonsense.
I quite liked the old BMW idea in the '80's. All their cars were well built but had no extras,so you bought the car and paid for such frippery as you desired.
In the unlikely event that I ever buy another new car I would love to pay for them to remove most of the rubbish . Not economically viable unfortunately!

Quite, I have had several new cars, some company provided and now onto my own, all getting progressively more complex.

The new E class Merc I have as an owner you have absolutely no chance of doing anything with it, and it has all of the above, no spare wheel, electric handbrake, stop start and more electronics than you can shake a stick at. I spent half an hour looking for the dipstick - it dosent have one !, it tells you when you need to put oil in and how much.

The bonnet release could almost be locked, for use by Mercedes service only !.

------ and can you turn the lights off?

No, it does its own thing with them, and the wipers. According to the manual I do have to point it in the right direction though......

They've even started doing that by themselves now...
There's a great Isaac Asimov short story called 'Sally' about self driving cars. Written back in the '50' or '60' I think. Well worth finding.

having just bought a new car (December) I doesn't let me turn the lights off. they are always on. great in the summer........

The worry with these constantly lit cars is that in a few years when most of the older cars have gone drivers will only notice headlamps and anything without them will become invisible.

If the day comes when I can't see a car in broad daylight, I'll stop driving. Lights are only needed for a small percentage of the driving day, making the assumption that day driving is more popular than night. Suppose it saves on light switches! Maybe one has to spend more on a car to get the option.

How we used to laugh at all the Volvo drivers who couldn't turn their lights off during the day...

-----and now we've got more to laugh at!

Going back on topic, I use a Maplins solar charger in my '89 Landy. Permanently connected to the battery (against their advice). It's sat in the back of the truck for years now and the battery is always full of juice.
Just as well, being a typical Landrover!