This was my hacky solution for way-too-many untraceable drains in my truck. Now I just cut power when I park, and the battery reads the same when I come back. It even has provisions to wire up some accessories to continue to receive power and not lose settings, but right now I don't care I no longer have to charge my battery every week!OK so my usage is not typical for this device it's meant to shut off automatically at 11.8V as a last resort, but I don't need to wait that long or keep my battery that low I know it will get there in 4-5 days :)
Anyway, unit works as advertised, drains nothing when off, allows me to shut off the battery (hold button for 2 seconds) and to connect it back (just push the button). It probably shuts off automatically too, not tested. It comes with a good assortment of adapters for installations of most types posts, screw terminals, etc and even straight and 90 degree adapters for relocation should you have room shortage in your vehicle. Mine is in a Ram 2500 (V10) and mounted directly on top of the terminal, but I have the vertical space to hide small hybrids under the hood, If you don't, you can mount it on the side of the battery or even on the firewall with some creativity and possibly one short battery cable from a parts store.
You also get a fused wire for one accessory you may wish to leave permanently connected. The way it works is by connecting directly from the battery + terminal to the fuse socket for the circuit you remove the fuse and insert a blade terminal in its place. Looks weird, but it's effective (and how else would you isolate a circuit?). I may hook up my PCM circuit that way, as right now I'm losing the trip meter each time I power off (not to mention a rough idle until the PCM figures out what it's doing).
Installation is fairly easy, but does require a bit of basic coordination, especially to pull wire to where you want the button. If you're not into pulling wire and drilling a hole to mount the button, get the type III and use the wireless remotes. In my case, I wanted absolutely no unnecessary electrical drains (even though apparently the type III only uses 3-5mA for the radio receiver).
In summary, it works, seems solid enough, and hopefully outlasts the car. For me, it saved me from hours of trying to trace drains, replacing partially failed components, etc in other words, saved me money. Yay.
UPDATE (1.4 years later): I've been shutting off my battery for the night every day for 1.4 years, and today it refused to turn off. I thought the Battery Brain was dead, but after some investigation, my ground connection was rusty. Moral of this story: Unless you do what I do, you should periodically check that your Battery Brain can turn off like a smoke alarm... if there is poor ground, it will not turn off. On the upside the unit has held up to daily toggling quite well.
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Left lights on, pushed button, truck started, on time for work. Security feature also useful as it disables start up.Read Best Reviews of Battery Protector (T4) Here
Bought this cuz my duramax was killing both of my batteries for no apparent reason over night at random times. It saved me a few times. If you can't trace your parasitic drain on your battery, then this is the next best thing. Works exactly as described.Want Battery Protector (T4) Discount?
Apparant design flaws of my handicap van were discharging the battery while parked, resulting in a dead battery every few days. The switch for this battery protector was able to be mounted hidden in the front van grill giving me an easy way to shut off the power without opening the hood to manually disconnect the battery. My only complaint is that it might have been better to buy the wireless remote version of this device so that I could then use the remote starter without going out to my van first to reconnect the battery.Save 27% Off
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