After my post yesterday about jump starting my flat battery, I took the car for a run for about an hour, came home and put it on my CTEK charger (4 stage not 8 stage) and it showed battery full when I connected it. I left it on for two hours as I had to go out and dint want any further issues - two hours later the display on the CTEK showed half full. Went out came back, hooked it back up and it showed half full (which is fine it was two short trips I had made), left it connected overnight and have gone back to it now and it is showing half full
Is this part of the 'staged' charging that it cycles through different levels of charge or should it show fully charged now on the CTEK after 12 hours?
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Battery charging
Re: Battery charging
Charging will always show incorrect within a few hours of last use. BMW told me not to check any battery within 4 hours of last use as there are still 'stray charges' on the battery which take a while to average out to give a correct figure.
That might well be why the CTEK said fine to start with and then changed. Typically it takes 12 hours to fully recharge an E53 battery. On my X6 with the 8-stage version, the charge stage can take 10.5 hours according to the manual. The other stages are to see if it will accept a charge and hold a charge.
I typically get the first three amber lights on straight away and then it takes up to 12 hours to put the next 4 on before a green light indicates the battery is good.
I get a warning light if the battery is shot.
Richard
That might well be why the CTEK said fine to start with and then changed. Typically it takes 12 hours to fully recharge an E53 battery. On my X6 with the 8-stage version, the charge stage can take 10.5 hours according to the manual. The other stages are to see if it will accept a charge and hold a charge.
I typically get the first three amber lights on straight away and then it takes up to 12 hours to put the next 4 on before a green light indicates the battery is good.
I get a warning light if the battery is shot.
Richard
Last edited by X5Sport on Thu May 01, 2014 12:25 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Never anthropomorphise computers. They hate that.Re: Battery charging
hi i had a problem with starting my E53 , constantly on an 8 stage charger , changed the battery to higher output Bosch battery which was fine for 6 months , then problem started again .
Took it into the dealers which said it was a starter motor problem & wanted to relieve me of £1000 , my car starters off a jump every time so never bothered !
Last month I read a thread on the Hedgehog or final stage resister being the main issue , again asked a dealer £600 plus part , ordered one of dealer to fit myself , fitted it within 45 mins by following tips on here .
Hey presto car starts no problem , no more flat batteries .
Try that first otherwise like me I could have spent £1600 & still had the problem , part was £85 genuine item .
Took it into the dealers which said it was a starter motor problem & wanted to relieve me of £1000 , my car starters off a jump every time so never bothered !
Last month I read a thread on the Hedgehog or final stage resister being the main issue , again asked a dealer £600 plus part , ordered one of dealer to fit myself , fitted it within 45 mins by following tips on here .
Hey presto car starts no problem , no more flat batteries .
Try that first otherwise like me I could have spent £1600 & still had the problem , part was £85 genuine item .
Re: Battery charging
Yep - I had similar four years ago (when this battery got changed and at six years old it probably needed it anyway) but turns out it was the starter too (2004 vintage or thereabouts are prone to pulling too much power) once it was changed it was fine