Saved a battery......

[X5Sport]

Have had a CTEK 8-stage 4A re conditioner charger for some years and it's been great for keeping the batteries on all the cars in good nick.

Recently though, our E46 330Cd got left a bit too long between charges and the CTEK could not recover it - the battery was also only showing 1.4V which looked very wrong.  Amazon ran a 'Lightning Deal' on the 8-stage 10A version with a 60% discount so I bought one.  It completely reconditioned & recovered the battery in 24hours and has paid for itself at the first attempt.....

The extremely low voltage issue turned out to be the Alarm.  I think others have found this as well.  A boost of volts from the charger for under a minute, the alarm chirped, and the battery volts jumped back to 11.5.  After that no issues with charging.  It almost looks as if the alarm was putting a short across the battery, but that doesn't make sense.  Whatever it did, it certainly dragged the supply down as measured at the front.

I don't usually like using high power chargers as they can damage batteries if they can't adjust to the battery type, and this CTEK can deal with all types - wet, gel and AGM at the press of a button.

Happy New Year :xmasgrin:

Richard

[pvr]

If you had disconnected the battery, would the CTEK have managed then I wonder?

[X5Sport]

Last time that battery was disconnected the Dealer had it for a week to fix all the electrical issues it caused so I was a bit wary of that approach - although it was the obvious one.

Dealer changed the battery in 2010 and blew the roof main fuse (30A) and stopped the Nav, radio, head unit and rear led lighting from working.  I don't know know they did, and they refused to say much.  I suspected the new battery was put in backwards but can't prove it so I took no chances this time........cowardly maybe, but

R

[Sanj]

This blinding deal on the ctek buddy - got a link? Think I might need one....  :xmassad:

[X5Sport]

Sorry Sanj it was a two-hour lightning deal and sold out in about 10 mins.  Currently they are £120 a pop again.

It's a CTEK MXS10.

Richard

[Sanj]

My luck....  :'(

[jaynana]

[quote="X5Sport"]
Sorry Sanj it was a two-hour lightning deal and sold out in about 10 mins.  Currently they are £120 a pop again.

It's a CTEK MXS10.

Richard
[/quote]

looking at this seems like an amazing kit.. damn too bad i bought a cheaper model couple of years back.. always handy in the winter with webo draining whatever power left as well.

[briankerrys47]

[quote="jaynana"]
[quote="X5Sport"]
Sorry Sanj it was a two-hour lightning deal and sold out in about 10 mins.  Currently they are £120 a pop again.

It's a CTEK MXS10.

Richard
[/quote]Sanji I have MXS 5.0 paid £54.75 March /13 off E-bay Dilip Shah! Seems to be ok,thought about MXS 10 about 80quid but to tight!!!!!

looking at this seems like an amazing kit.. damn too bad i bought a cheaper model couple of years back.. always handy in the winter with webo draining whatever power left as well.
[/quote]

[briankerrys47]

[quote="briankerrys47"]
[quote="jaynana"]
[quote="X5Sport"]
Sorry Sanj it was a two-hour lightning deal and sold out in about 10 mins.  Currently they are £120 a pop again.

It's a CTEK MXS10.

Richard
[/quote]

looŵking at this seems like an amazing kit.. damn too bad i bought a cheaper model couple of years back.. always handy in the winter with webo draining whatever power left as well.
[/quote]
[/quote]Sangi I have a MXS  5.0  110-160 amps ,paid £54.75 off eBay in March/13 not as powerful as the 10 ,200-300 but suitable for X5 battry type ,I think they do a 8 as well  :blink: