Prolonged Parking without using car

mknight · May 24, 2016

Hi everybody,

I have the 2016 Kia Soul and I am about to go away for 3 weeks internationally. So the car will be standing still and not driven.

What is the best method to minimize issues?

Do I keep the car plugged in to charge it?
Schedule it to charge say, once a week or other frequency?
Disconnect the 12V battery?
I read somewhere you can use some fuse to "disconnect the 12v battery" ?
And If I do disconnect the 12v battery - Is that going to cause any issues?

I am in Southern CA so its mostly going to be 70-90f day time, maybe 50s at night and the car is garaged so I doubt it matters.

Thanks for your feedback

notfred · May 25, 2016

Don't leave it plugged in to the charger, that will result in a flat 12V battery. This is because it will keep using the 12V power to wake up and see if it needs to charge, realise it is fully charged and then power down. The 12V battery only gets charged off the main battery while driving (kind of like an alternator on a gasoline vehicle).

For 3 weeks I wouldn't worry. Best is to leave it at about 50% charge but as long as it is not flat and not fully charged I would say you're fine. The 12V will last for 3 weeks - just think of it like the 12V in a gasoline car. If you were leaving it for longer (e.g. 6 weeks) then I would probably worry about the 12V. On the 2016 models there is a switch in the middle of the fuse panel by the driver's left leg. Switching that off will disconnect the 12V but you will loose all your programming of radio presets and charging times etc.

JejuSoul · May 25, 2016

-
The switch is here if you want to turn everything off. (UVO and SmartKey stay alive when the car is off, so if you lock the car after disconnecting you will need to unlock with the physical key). Let us know what happened when you get back. There is a previous discussion about this here - Going on Vacation

mknight · May 26, 2016

JejuSoul said:
The switch is here if you want to turn everything off. (UVO and SmartKey stay alive when the car is off, so if you lock the car after disconnecting you will need to unlock with the physical key). Let us know what happened when you get back. There is a previous discussion about this here - http://www.mykiasoulev.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=311

This is super easy to "turn off" - thanks.
I will make sure the drive battery is around 50-60% full or so and will turn this switch off.
And will use the physical key to get back into the car when I return.

Thanks for all the useful replies!

mknight · Jun 23, 2016

Hey,

I'm back. The car started just fine. Had to manually unlock the driver door with the physical key. Turned that switch back on - and everything is back to normal. No data or anything was lost, as far as I could tell. All the radio stations memories stayed intact and drive history seems to be there as well.

So, ALL IS GOOD!

Thanks guys for you help.