Will battery die if car inactive for 2 weeks?

Hey guys, been on this forum for just a short time and now its part of my wake up routine... just gotta read it and see how everybody is doing..

Here's my dilemma, I will be leaving town for 2 weeks straight. I read somewhere that BMW are meant to be driven every couple of days or the battery will be drained. Something to do with all the I-drive electronics or stuff thingy-hicky (not very technical sorry!) So if I leave for that long, do I come home and be greeted with a dead car that won't start? I also heard that it may be dangerous to jumpstart a car, that it will damage the sensitive electronics, but rather I should invest in a battery charger.

So, what should I do to prep my car before leaving?

Any help is appreciated!

Thanks

2 weeks should be fine. I have left my car for a month without any complications.

That said, if you have a garage with a power socket, get yourself a battery charger.

http://www.batterytender.com/

I bought the Battery Tender Plus, it works like a charm. It conditions the battery and you can leave it plugged as long as you wish. After recharging, it automatically switches to floating charge mode.

Great investment.

Indeed. Telephone companies keep lead acid batteries on standby this way and they last for decades. A car battery won't because of its use but it will probably last much longer with a float charger if you don't drive the car that often.

You would probably get a dead battery if you leave you car out in the dead cold for two weeks. Cold weather kills batteries in a heart beat!!! But in warm weather your car will be alright!

You don't have an E46 so you should be ok.

Remember the ol' climate control battery discharge problem?

Thanks for the info guys,

I think I read somewhere in the manual about not putting the car into "Park" but rather put it in "Drive" when parking the car for extended periods of time. Not sure if this is necessary... although in Park, there's an amber LED right next to the P that stays on..

Any ideas?

When I went way out of town for 6 weeks, I left the car keys for my previous car (a Toyota) with a friend I could trust and he took the car out for a driver every other week or so just to make sure the car got some exercise.

Originally Posted by RandyB

You don't have an E46 so you should be ok.

Remember the ol' climate control battery discharge problem?

Alas, that is not yet just a historical curiosity.

The current 5er, for example, has a few software-related battery drain issues, some of which won't be corrected until after the summer shut down (not until September).

Originally Posted by BMW16

You would probably get a dead battery if you leave you car out in the dead cold for two weeks. Cold weather kills batteries in a heart beat!!! But in warm weather your car will be alright!

But it is the summer heat that really shortens a battery's life: just ask anyone who lives someplace consistently hot, such as Houston or Southern Florida. You will probably find that they have different expectations of how long a battery lasts.

The winter cold just reveals summer's damage by greatly (and temporarily) reducing the battery's capacity. Assuming the battery is not frozen and split by wrathful cold, the mortal blows were probably dealt months before.

I was out of town for three weeks and left my car in the garage. When I got home and tried to start it it fired right up.

When shipping my car to and from Europe via a contract car shipper, my baby sat undriven for upwards of six weeks or longer with no ill effects.