Quote Originally Posted by peculiarmike View Post
A discharged battery will freeze, may burst. Need to be kept charged.
BUT, do not try to charge a frozen battery! BAD things will happen.

On the other side -
Old fishing, hunting buddy down by Mt. Vernon, MO bought a used '02 Tracker deep vee with 115 Merc, loaded. Had it 5 weeks. He had it under a metal carport next to his new metal building with the onboard charger plugged in. By chance he got up to answer the call at 0345 and happened to look out the bathroom window. His boat was on fire, and not just a little bit either! Completely! He called the rural fire dept. By the time they got there the boat and everything in it was gone, nothing left except the motor and trailer. The motor was heavily damaged. Carport was destroyed, paint burned off the side of the building. Insurance replaced everything.
Fire chief told him it might have been caused by a defective cell in one of his batteries but I lean more toward a wiring defect such as worn through insulation, etc. Good to have a close look at that stuff ever so often.
That's what I have always been afraid of.So I usually charge it to full the night I get back from fishing and then plug it back in the night before I go again. Just wanted to see if keeping it plugged in would help in this extreme cold.