Storing your car - what to do

[tonymy01]

I was just away for a month, and immobilised my car with Bluefin, there was enough battery to do the 20 min reflash and start the car afterwoods.
My Subaru used to go flat as it had a bright keypad immobiliser and Quiktrak, so I had a good trickle charger that had a cable permanently attached to the battery and could be plugged in for when I was away for more than a week.

[DkN]

I would have charged it first just to be safe, could have been disastrous if the ECU flash got cut off halfway

When I bought a new battery the guy selling it to me said that the alternator is designed to keep the battery from going flat when the car is running and doesn't charge the battery. He then said that If I had a flat battery, I could drive to Melbourne non-stop, turn off the car, and still have it unable to start.

I was going to ask him what the point of jump-starting was, but I thought I wouldn't bother...

If you're really worried just have a trickle charger ready, but as Transporter said there isn't much point to taking the battery out. Also on my car, when I changed the battery the airbag chucked a fault that had to be cleared with VCDS.

[dieterbohlen]

You don't have to start it every couple of days, just make sure the battery is fully charged and the car locked. The battery that is 1-3 years old and in good condition should still start the car when stopped for 3-4 weeks.

I was thinking about leaving it for 6 days... I guess it's probably going to be ok, right?

[AdamD]

I was thinking about leaving it for 6 days... I guess it's probably going to be ok, right?

Unless your battery is already on the way out and giving you troubles, your car will be absolutely fine if left unstarted for 6 days.

[tonymy01]

I would have charged it first just to be safe, could have been disastrous if the ECU flash got cut off halfway

Yeah, was kind of freaking out a bit, as I thought the immobilisation using bluefin would be simply changing a few bytes, but navigating the handset menu to re-mobilise it seemed my only option was a full re-apply of Bluefin (which I did, and the car started after, so I guess the right option)! And my high speed engine fans were on the whole time (due to no brains in the CPU from the "immobilisation" presumably), was a bit worried, so about 10mins in, I wedged my trickle charger into the battery posts somewhat (however the trickle charger delivers no more than 2A, but I am guessing the fans draw quite a bit more than that!)
Long story short... 4 weeks with no starting on a new (well, car is 6months old, but was built August 2011 so battery is nearly a year old I suspect) battery seems fine...