Saving Presets

wolfman

Well-known Member
When changing batteries on a late model pickup can you save presets if you hook a battery tender to the cables ?
 
I would not predict success with that. Much would depend on the tender" capability to react to the circuit it finds. Best would be using a set of jumper cables to keep a battery in the circuit. Jim
 
The little handy dandy gizmo the mechanics use is a 9 volt transistor radio battery with two little gator clips. Another model has the battery and plugs into the lighter socket. Stop in your local car part store for a few bucks. No dome lights, radio, under the hood lights, nothing! Very safe. If you think you might screw up then I would use a lite weight set of jumpers and a motorcycle battery so if you accidentally let out some smoke they can burn off without too much drama. Look it up on ebay.....memory saver.
 
I tried one of those gadgets with a 9 volt battery once and it didn't work. As I recall, it was on an Olds 88.
 
This should do it, 9 volt batt. hooked to a lighter socket plug.
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I have tried the little 9 volt battery units that plug into the power outlets. They did not work when I tried them. I think that the dome light tried to pull power and drained the little 9 volt battery. What sucked is the power drop triggered the security system in the after market radio the truck has in it. I did not have any of the original paperwork or the code to reset the radio. It took me a day calling the manufacture and faxing them the bill of sale on the vehicle to get the darn radio working again.

So after that JOY I use my battery boost pack hooked to cables. The vehicle see 12 volts even with the battery out and the usually small voltage drains. IF you do not have a boost pack then another 12 volt battery hooked up with jumper cables would work fine too. Maybe your lawn mower battery???
 
The aftermarket JVC #KD-R970BTS radio in my pickup saves the presets when the battery is disconnected. I had the battery disconnected for a week and was pleasantly surprised that the presets where still good. The radio in my GM car does not remember the presets. To make it easier to reprogram the presets, I wrote the stations on a note card and keep it in the glove box.
 
My booster pack has an attachment to plug into your vehicle's cigarette lighter or power outlet socket, just for that purpose.

How could the 9 volt gizmo possibly work? Seems like you're 3 volts short. Maybe works on radio, but I want to save all the computer presets as well.
 
Had AAA out a couple days ago to change the battery on the Tundra. Wife already reset the clock. I'm not in a hurry to reset the radio because I mostly use the CD player.
 
I can honestly say the last vehicle I had that wouldn't save the presets when the battery was disconnected was my 01 F350. We just put a battery on my sons 03 Ranger yesterday and the presets were saved, wife Buick had a new one put in last month and it saved the presets.
 
here at the shop i use a small 2 amp motorcycle charger and hook it up under the hood at a power connection. the problem with the 9v cig lighter pigtails is most cars have power to those ports wired thru the ignition switch. you need the key on to backfeed power to the system. some vehicles, honda especially have an anti theft radio. if the power is disconnected, the radio shuts down and you need to enter a security code in the radio to get it to work again. i think you get 3 trys and then the radio will pop a fusible link inside the radio, disabling the radio. if you lose the code, you have to get the serial number off the back of the radio, and the vin number and call the dealer to get the code. its a royal pia,most times half the dash needs to come out to get to the radio.
 
I just changed the battery on the wires 2012 car. I hooked one of those Harbor Freight cheap maintainers to it. It worked. It was a royal pain because I clipped the thing to the cable ends so it was in my way the whole time. Hindsight what it is, I should have traced the wires and hooked up the maintainer a little farther down the line where it was out of my way. It saved on some whining, though.
 
I don't think it takes much to keep every thing operating. You need something though. Remember when it was so simple to just remove the battery, install a different one and everything worked. Stan
 
If you are talking about radio presets, then maybe.

They will retain if stored on flash, if in batter backed up RAM, then no.
 

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