Hi AZ: I just had to have my battery jumped. I hope it's an isolated incident (drove very short distances this past week). I did have the HFL issue which caused several instances of a drained battery (resolved by disconnecting it).

I have a very general electrical question more for my curiousity as I am not mechanically inclined at all.

It seems like it is ok to leave your car parked for a week or even two (I try not to let it get further than that) but a couple of days of very short trips can result in a drained battery. Does the starting of a car take a lot of "juice" from the battery and if you don't drive it long enough to bring it back up and it is done frequently in a short timeframe then eventually it will be drained?

Thanks.

 

Short trips are hard on it because you don't have time for the battery to charge or recover from the starting event. Plus, everytime you shut the car down it can take up to 30 minutes for all of the electronics to shut down so they're drawing power while the engine is off.

I used to commute to work 45 miles each way. I now take a company car so my drive is now 1.5 miles each way. My old Optima battery would eventually die unless I took it on a longer trip on the weekends or drove into work at least once during the week. The Diehard Platinum I now use is a much better battery but it still turns over slower when I go more than a week without a long trip (30mins or more). It always starts the car but it does turn over slower when it's only driven for short trips.
Running the battery completely dead is bad for the battery and jumping it off especially when really dead is bad for the electrical system, especially the ECU. I've seen ECUs fried from jump starting. It's a good idea to put a trickle charger on it. Many times the battery never fully recovers from running completely down so it goes dead quicker the next time.