Maintenance Free Batteries?????

Maintenance Free has to do with check and maintaining fluid levels. Any battery that is discharged down on a regular basis will develope sulfate deposits on the battery paltes. This can result in the battery not recharging properly and deepening the ever visious cycle until the battery fails. Keeping the charge up prevents this, although over charging will boil out the fluid on most batteries again resulting in plating out and a possible short circuit between plates, which then results in a battery explosion when you try to recharge. When I quit driving my Dakota regularly I went through two batteries in three years and these were Maintenance Free ones. Now I drive it at least once every two weeks and try to drive it every week to keep the battery charged up. My boat has multiple charger/maintainers installed so I don't have to remember to charge them on a regular basis.