Avoiding the LRA call out to the long term car park after your holidays

Rapidly flattening batteries on cars left in the long term car park at the airport or airport hotel have been a built in feature of modern Land and Range Rovers for the last 2-3 years........ especially after your winter holiday in the sun when you get back at 3am to a car covered in rime or snow. As I have to leave my cars for up to 3 months without them getting a run I now have a Maplin £20 solar panel powered trickle charger that solves the problem, plugs into the rear socket in the boot

So you have to leave that on beofre you go on holiday? do you get sun un the boot of the car or you leave then solar panel on the roof ?

Sorry I was interupted during posting...............

I put the solar panel on the centre consol or the top of the dash with the cable threaded between the rear seat split to the rear socket that stays live when the ignition is off, and it only needs daylight rather than sunlight to work - I found that out last winter when you lot had 4 feet of snow and I was 15 weeks in Singapore! My FFRR was completely buried under snow for weeks and my father cleared a small hole in the snow to see if the panel was still charging the battery and it's little LED was still winking away indicating that it was and the car started first press of the start button when I got home.
This is the one I have http://www.maplin.co.uk/solar-powered-12...rger-98358 you have to make sure that whatever version you buy that it has a blocking diode otherwise at night the solar panel will draw power out of the battery................ it is also essential that you unplug it before driving the car away or starting the engine other wise it can damage the car's electronics. For £20 it's a great way not to end up with an emergency call out for a jump start though

Thats great. Thanks for that Tim, very useful.

(30-11-2011 09:55am)XFullFatTim Wrote:  Sorry I was interupted during posting...............

Yeah, those damn ports sure creep up on you like that !

It's about time manufacturers included battery level indicators in the dash info systems.

Thans for the tips Tim!

Even better than that, the Prius has a solar panel in the roof, why can't other manufacturers do something similar especially as it is their design and OE items which cause this.

A letter to JLR me thinks.

Maplin are doing an xmas deal of a 2.4W solar trickle charger with reverse diode on special offer for 1/2 price £12.99 (was £25.99), although it's quite a large panel compare with the 1.4W version.

Smaller and cheaper than the 2.4w is 2w for £9.99 [but still slightly larger than the 1.5w]

http://www.maplin.co.uk/12v-2w-solar-briefcase-348075

I'm pleading complete ignorance here, I know what the solar panel is capable of, but I have heard that in some modern cars the way the electrical systems are configured a solar charger cannot have any input power wise.

Does the Evoque have similar issues or as has been mentioned earlier you connect it to an alternative point in the car?

Sorry if this seems a daft question.