My '05 S2000 sits in a hot Florida garage most of the time. It gets driven very little and is on its 3rd battery in 2 years. I use a battery tender, but the batteries keep failing. Luckily, the 2 replacements have been 100% covered under warranty. I had the charging system checked out when I put the 1st two batteries in. This time, I just picked up a new battery at the shop. Is this just a case of not being driven and possibly a bad battery tender (could the tender be killing the batteries)?

The car is actually my son's now and he is picking it up in a few weeks.

Another issue - the car only has 12K miles on it and wears the original tires. Are 18 year old tires as dangerous as they say? My son intends to replace the tires, but in the meantime I'm curious.

 

18 year old tires on a sports car? You will be lucky to survive pulling it out of the driveway.

Seriously get those tires replaced.

 

05 s2k with 12k miles on it, on original tires? Tell your son to go buy a Miata and you sell your car on BringATrailer. You’d make all your money back and then some.

 

For real. Gold mine right there.

 

I bought the car years ago, sort of a midlife crisis thing. I got too old and fat to drive it, but didn't want to part with it. My son wanted it, so we struck a deal and he actually just paid me for the car. I recently saw what I could get for it and accused him of elder abuse. His reply - a deal is a deal....

 

Hopefully he makes good decisions with the car. It will take some work to get it running fresh again after barely getting driven for 2 decades.

 

I wonder about the battery drain