2002 battery tender recommendations?

[2002TbirdNC]

I am a new 2002 Tbird owner. I searched previous threads and found the one unit mentioned as being popular is no longer available. Does anyone use a unit they would highly recommend?

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[Tom Alpers]

I am a new 2002 Tbird owner. I searched previous threads and found the one unit mentioned as being popular is no longer available. Does anyone use a unit they would highly recommend?

I had a couple of the Battery Tender maintenance chargers go bad within a few months so I would cross them off my list. I have a couple Harbor Freight ones, the roughly $35 versions, 4 amp, which seem to work ok. I have a Schumacher 2 or 3 amp one that I think it probably the best and smartest that I have been using most recently on one of my cars. The one I like the best overall is a 4 or 5 amp "Type S" brand.. they are harder to find, you may need to buy directly... I like it a lot because its display rotates between showing the voltage and showing the amps. All of them will at least do both regular batteries and AGM batteries. They all claim to be "smart" yet each seems to have a different idea of what the correct final voltage is, some seem to float at 13+ and others at a bit below 12. The all come with wiring you can use to make a permanent battery connection with an easy connect/disconnect. I have done that on all my cars so I connect and disconnect them quickly without opening the hood by sticking the connection in the grill/just behind the grill where I can easily fish it out. It needs to be well connected to the battery so the charger gets an accurate voltage reading. Poor connections make the readings off and then it can't tell what the true battery voltage is.