It must be a very poor alternator I have never had to boost the battery ever and I have run new cars and some real bangers and I live in an area were -30 is not unusual.An alternator when working properly will recharge a good battery in a few minutes of driving this is a new car were talking about not a 10 year old banger with a duff battery.To much charge is more likely to do the battery harm than good, it will not extend the life of a battery by very much if at all chances are it will only make a bad battery work for a few months longer instead of looking at the real problem people buy trickle chargers and hope it will cure the problem instead of looking at the charging circiut and the condition of the battery.A Webasto preheat system will be a darn sight more useful but unless you live in very remote part of the UK it never gets that cold to warrant one.

Edited by Collos25 on 17/02/2013 at 19:38

>> I just want to give it an occasional boost

Why?

The alternator does the job and your car is brand new!

Not necessarily. Short journeys or long periods of non use can discharge a battery and the alternator will never bring it back up to full charge. A regular boost with a charger is good for all cars and will extend the life of your battery. A battery is not a 'fit and forget' itm - though most people seem to think so (battery problems are amongst the most common cause of callouts for all the rescue services)

Thanks for your replies. The reason I like to keep the battery charged is because I do low mileage and quite a few short trips. With all the electronics on modern cars the battery can be drained surprisingly quickly, and I was caught out a couple of times with my previous, 2006 model, Civic. I do notice however, that the new model has a much beefier looking battery than the old one. Even with a brand new car, if you keep taking more out than you are putting in, it will fail.