I have a charger that I bought a few years ago, it's a dual voltage, dual amperage model that allows for 2A and 6A charging.

My wife is the primary driver of the car, and she routinely makes 5-mile jaunts in the car with the lights on, climate control blasting, and the radio bumping. So, basically, I should probably keep the battery on a charge at all times? I'm okay with that, if needed.

It just seems strange to me that these issues haven't been a problem since I bought the car, and only manifested after I came back from a vacation where the car sat for almost two weeks. She makes the same sort of short-duration trips now that she did months ago, and I've never had electrical problems (other than replacing the OE alternator and battery last summer) that caused systems to fail until just now.

It sounds like I should be looking into picking up a decent multimeter so I can measure voltage at the battery, rather than looking at OBC indications for surface voltage. And maybe tomorrow, I will take the battery to Autozone and have them run a test on it for me.

Thanks again for helping me to work through this.

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2007 BMW X5 4.8i - Sport Package, Wife's Car

2001 BMW 325i - My Car.

2005 Ford Excursion Limited 4x4, 6.0 Powerstroke Diesel. My first "grown up" car.