Ok this was a huge surprise. The wife and kids were gone for a couple of weeks and I thought I would hook my Ctek charger up to the MDX. Yikes.
1. In order to get to the negative connection (the engine lift point), you have to remove the engine cover?
2. The negative terminal on the battery (say you did not want to lift the engine cover) is not accessible as it is halfway under the hood?
3. The distance between the positive terminal on the battery and the engine lift point is so far that I'm not sure any charger out there can span that distance.

What exactly was Acura thinking here?

 

I too agree that it's a very stupid design, having to remove the plastic engine cover to access the lift point (negative connection); especially that the cover is very, very difficult to put back on properly.

I also pushed out and lost one of the rubber grommets once when I was in a hurry to put the cover back on.

However, most chargers have long enough charging cables, and as long as you can split out the red charging wire from the black charging wire, you will have no problem reaching both connection locations.

 

Acura was thinking 'I bet no one is ever going to read the manual or ever learn how to properly jump start a car, so we better keep the battery safe and setup the contacts in a way that you can't jump another car straight off the battery'

don't charge a battery by hooking to it's positive terminal and using a chassis ground - if you plan to do this often enough, get an onboard battery maintainer (cheap, like $20 at harbor freight), they're made for RV's etc

It's designed that way for safety purposes - a donor car should be hooking it's battery positive and chassis ground to boost a dead car's battery (connect directly to a dead car's battery).

furthermore, you should technically charge your car battery outside of the car when charging with higher than 1amp of current (which can still be potentially bad) for a few reasons:
-high charging currents induce higher hydrogen production from the battery
-higher fire hazard of a charging battery due to stagnant hydrogen + potential sparking from charger cables
-accidental spikes or unregulated power from a charger can blow fuses or destroy new car circuitry (can-bus systems are more susceptible to voltage issues)

 

Huh? Take a look at CTEK Chargers- they make "Smart Battery Chargers". I think you might be surprised by the technology (and just slightly better than what you might find at Harbor Freight) . Note they are probably the leader in "onboard battery maintainers" - a title I'm not sure anyone has ever heard of - but I get your jist

That said, it is best to hook up to both the positive and negative terminals on the battery - and thus my point - YOU CAN'T EASILY GET TO THE NEGATIVE TERMINAL ON THE BATTERY. You can of course connect to the ground on the engine block - EXCEPT THAT IS UNDER A COVER AS WELL.

Sooo... go back, read my original post.... - your "onboard battery maintainer" can't be hooked up to the Acura without removing the engine cover or reaching under the front bumper to get to the negative terminal blindly. Its a crappy design. Period.

 

The Battery Tender Plus(1.5amp) is very similar to the CTEK one. I have both. For my muscle car I use the Battery Tender. Costco stores are selling them or get them online. They have a quick ring terminal harness that you permanently attach to battery. Then you use the quick connect to attach to the charger. EZ PZ. This will work for that hard to reach battery of ours. CTEK sells similar quick connect too. Both Battery Tender and CTEK are very well regarded. I would not use Harbor Freight. So no more taking off covers.

http://batterytender.com/products/ac...l-harness.html

 

Thanks Tman -ok, on those ring terminal connectors -where do you put the cable when not in use? Just wire tie it up and leave there?

 

Yep, just leave it there. You can tie it up somewhere or lay it somewhere. Battery Tender comes with one quick connect and one alligator clips. Nice unit.