Because of a thread with regards to the Tender I went to see if my tender was on the green LED and it was. However I didn't put the garage lights on and when I went to the back of the 488 I noticed the below ? Alarm is on and you can see the LED, but the stop LEDS's were slightly lit. I turned off the alarm and they still remained the same. Anyone notice this ? Sure the current draw would be very small but if this is normal you can see that the car uses current even if the alarm is off. Most likely why Ferrari also gives you a tender since they know the car on sitting with little use will drain the battery. Image Unavailable, Please Login
Brake light LEDS rear on the spoiler The single dot ( or 2 dots from the camera is the LED on the dash for the alarm )
This car draws a lot of current when off. I use a more sophisticated tender than the supplied one and I hear it switching on and off every 30 minutes because it senses current draw and keeps the battery topped up. From what I can tell if you take this car off the tender for more than 3-5 days it will most likely not start or barely start and display many ECU faults due to the low voltage. Also the charging circuit when running is very weak and unless you are running the car at high RPMs for a long time the battery does not get charged fully and that is why the tender has to put back significant amperage into the battery even after you run it. That explains why the small tender they supply, put on right after a drive still needs many hours before it goes green and gets hot as it is too small for this type of duty. Because of this I do not suspect the batteries on these cars to last very long and will need replacement in 2-3 years even if perfectly maintained.
Wait till the tender module near the battery shorts out and causes the battery to implode and starts a fire. Ask me how I know?
Man let it go. You post this same paragraph in every battery discussion. We got it. Your car had an issue. You are upset. Now move on for God’s sake man.
That you for the information. You said you went with a bigger tender. Which one ? Also having a bigger amperage are you sure the cable that goes from the bumper to the battery is thick enough or not an issue ? BTW have you noticed what I saw with the brake leds slightly lit ? Many thanks Angelo
Hello, I was wondering if you could let me now what other beefed up charger you use on your 488? I liked your post and that’s what is happening too me my car doesn’t seem too be getting enough from the factory tender. Thanks
[QUOTE="MANDALAY, post: 146188066, member: 143328..... have you noticed what I saw with the brake leds slightly lit ?[/QUOTE] Angelo. Yes. My 2018 does the same. Center stop light LEDs dimly lite with everything turned off.
Image Unavailable, Please Login Angelo my car does the same thing as well. LEDs slightly on when car is completely off. I had noticed this before as well as I had measured significant current draw at the battery as well. It fluctuates from a tenth of an amp to a quarter. I can’t figure out why it fluctuates. I suspect the various computers in the car are possibly cycling on and off. Mine is a 2018 as well. Went to the dealer and looked at two others and they do it as well. Seems F screwed up some where and there is some voltage bleed that is lighting the rear LEDs all the time although at a low level. Clearly this is why all the dealers are saying to ALWAYS keep these cars plugged in. My dealer proactively throws out the OEM F battery and replaces it with a new better Interstate just to avoid problems. It is typical for the new cars to show up at the dealer with with near dead batteries as the constant current draw kills them during their shipping from Italy. They are not plugged in while on the ship etc. I have also looked at the charge side of the car when it is running and you will notice very little charge going towards the battery when driving at low RPMs etc. Just bring up your voltage meter when your driving and watch it go all over the place from 12 volts to 14 volts and swinging all the time with throttle position and engine load. This is atypical for most cars where you will see the voltage meter show a constant 14 volts or so. With all that said the answer to keeping these car’s battery healthy is to keep it plugged to a good tender. The little one that they supply would be ok in a typical car but imo is under powered for the above reasons. Unless you are driving the car long distances at high RPMs it will come back with a discharged battery. You can verify this by putting a voltage meter on the battery when you get back home. The tender when plugged in has to push enough amps back into it to get it fully charged. Some people report that it takes many hours for this to happen even when plugged in immediately after driving the car. The little tender also gets hit as it is imo too small for this duty. It will get the job done eventually. I decided to use a larger CTEK. Photo attached. Sorry it’s upside down. As far as the concern about the wiring gauge and can it support the 7 amps that this charger can supply. I have had no issues and the gauge of wiring from the charger is identical to the OEM supplied unit. The magnetic coupler has amp specs that are higher as well. I have not been able to confirm the gauge of wiring in the car. Hope this helps.
Leakage in the power rail. Won’t be normal. Any custom modifications in the electrical? Custom stereo, radar or anything different from dealer?? SV Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
458 is different than 488. All 488 have a variable charging circuit. Welcome to the latest technology.
The more current you push through the same gauge wire the more the drop across it and the more heat produced. At some point bigger is not better and can produce unwanted consequences. Not saying that 7 amps is a problem for the existing wiring but it was designed for something like 4 amps worth of trickle charge. Likely there is inefficiency at the magnetics versus direct connection in prior setups. Best would be occasional direct charge at the battery terminals with a real charger.
Agree with this. I actually measured voltage at the connector and compared with voltage at the battery and there was zero drop between charger and battery. Also measured heat using both chargers at the connector and there was no difference using a touch-less heat measuring gun. Because of the above I am comfortable using the 7 amp charger. I really think the little 4 amp one is too small for this application. I am sure that F has some fuse in the charger circuit as well to protect it. So far after a couple of months of ownership and using the bigger charger I have had no problems and the battery shows the same capacitance using a tester so I think I’m good. Time will tell. Moral of the story is keep these cars plugged in. The current draw when off is significant. Btw the rear LEDs staying slightly lit has been confirmed in 4 2018 488s that I have personally looked at.
This is an interesting discussion ... I need to look at my 488 in the dark! I wonder how long before Ferrari has a recall on this.
Here's a photo of the rear of my 2018 488GTB ... yep, those LED's are slightly on. Exceedingly poor design ... Image Unavailable, Please Login
What is there to recall? The OEM tenders are stronger than the 458 version and there has always been a requirement to drive minimum annual miles and use the tender. Unless there are statistics for a sudden rise in battery replacements under warrantee then why would they do anything? Its not like the paint corrosion on the F12 rear vents that they are "studying". (some sarcasm here, of course).
