Hi Everyone, Tried to start my car on Sunday to find the battery died. Plugged it into my battery tender trickle charger and after 2 days realized the battery was too low for the battery tender to charge it. Now I have it on a porsche “charge-o-mat” (which charges via the cigarette lighter). Anyone have any suggestions or see any issues with what I’m doing to charge the battery back up? Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
Yes...do not blow up your airbag. For some reason these cars do not like weird power fluctuations. I would just change the battery. Costco 85 bucks just get one that is about same size and fits with same terminal locations it will work. Thee are fancier batteries but you really do not need them. A dead battery is a dead battery. even if the porsche thing can charge it will the battery hold a charge? Very unlikely. If you can start the car you will probably have to change the battery anyway. Why increase your pain. Just change it.
I have had dead batteries come. Live and works just fine for months and years thereafter. The new electronic chargers does not understand that they are connected to a battery if the battery is flat or very low on power. When that happens, I just use jumpercabøes to another battery and then put on the electronic charger. After 10 minutes, you can take the other battery off, and the dead battery charged and might come alive again!
Costco batteries are a pita to buy if you don’t do you homework. They only sell them by make and model and won’t sell you one by group number The group numbers are on the sides of them. Last time I got harassed by one of their “techs.” I waited until he was busy upselling tires and found what I wanted. He still hassled me for a make and model. Eventually I told him it was for the space shuttle and he begrudgingly sold me the battery.
That never happened to me ever. In fact just bought one for race car two weeks ago. Those guys don’t care. You use your brain figure out what you need and just carry it to the counter and buy it.
Costco deliberately moved the batteries to the auto department to keep returns down. They are fascists when it comes to selling them.
I've found that a battery tender has just enough charging power to handle the active on-board electronics, but not enough to charge a really low battery. Not sure I would charge a battery through the cigarette lighter, especially after I've seen the really small wire gauge used for the 550 lighter. Just get a full feature battery charger that clamps on to the battery. Also, better to turn off the battery switch before charging a really low battery.
Sooo... I used the cigarette light charger for about 2 hours. After those two hours it brought the battery back enough for the battery tender to sense it and charge, luckily no harm done. Will leave it on the trickle charger (battery tender one) until tomorrow when I start the car and run it for 15 minutes or so. Will update if anything broke Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
LOL. The Cowgirl and I keep track of what in The Fleet requires jump starting. Guido, our ‘99 550, lives primarily in our hangar. Over the years Guido has the pole position for saves. Followed by the Jeep. Which is followed by the Lexus. Guido has jump started the plane an embarrassing number of times. Guido himself is normally started via his very non-exotic AGM battery. It just works. When Guido’s below 10.5 volts we just carefully jump him and he’s happy.
For the sake of 100 bucks.,..just get a new battery. Dead battery will only live so long even if you get it working again. And guarantee you next time it doesn't work you're somewhere inconvenient and you wish you had just changed battery...
Use a CTEK maintainer faithfully and your conventional lead-acid batteries will last an amazing amount of time. I have one that is still providing reliable starts after more than 12 years...and was even upside down for two days in 2008!
Conventional generally refers to a "wet cell" or "flooded" battery. Both conventional and AGM respond well to a battery maintainer. As the AGM has a somewhat different charge profile, a maintainer that includes that specific function is best (I have a higher featured CTEK that supports the AGM profile on the Optima in my Cobra for example). It should be noted that AGMs do not like to be deeply discharged (<50%) in order for them to retain their reliability.
One of the advantages of AGM batteries is that they can be deep discharged multiple times without damage. That is the reason early rechargeable cordless tools like blowers and weed wackers came with AGM batteries, plus their ability to work in any orientation.
Just to update, the car has been plugged into the battery tender since I used the cigarette charger to get the battery to a level that the battery tender could detect it. Started it today, ran perfectly, nothing out of the ordinary. However, lesson learned for going forward, not gonna let the car sit for a month and a half without being on the tender. Sent from my iPhone using FerrariChat
My car started right up after 2 months with the alarm on and no charger/tender. But this summer, I installed a tracker and it used power from the battery to charge its own battery. So now, the car can only sit for two weeks. Am going to install a small switch for the tracker so for longer storage, I switch it off.
Here at the shop when we have one with a dead battery, we will generally try to revive it with a slow, 2A charge and see what happens first. I've found sometimes if you hit a totally dead one with the engine boost setting and then back it down, you'll get the battery to come alive again and accept a charge. FWIW, Maserati mandates an annual mileage driven of at least 4,000 for them to warranty a battery.