Before you turn on car what does your voltmeter show? I had a bad battery that was giving me issues (Warning lights, parking brake getting stuck, rough upshifts, and not properly rev matching down shifts) The old battery would only show a max of 12.0 volts after long drives. This made me think it wasn't properly holding a charge. I replaced it with a new interstate battery and all the issues have gone away. However, even after long drives with a brand new battery as soon as I turn off the car when I check the voltmeter it's still only showing 12.0 volts. When I start car it quickly turns to 14.4, but that was the same thing it used to do on the bad battery. Makes me question the accuracy of our built in voltmeters. I never trusted the reading when the car was turned on but it doesn't seem like you can get an accurate reading even with the car shut off.
I believe what you are seeing is correct. I’ve heard that the charging strategy when driving the car is not to fully charge the battery. The plug in charger is designed to bring the battery to a fully charged state.
Sounds like the alternator is not doing its job. When ignition key is out, the battery should be around 12.7v for a few minutes and then settle down to about 12.5v once the surface charge is dissipated.
I made a great observation a couple of weeks ago. Im 99.9999% sure the cars ecu ( one of them ) controls the Alternators output. Clearly seen when driving and monitoring the out put. Certainly goes to 14.4 volts on deceleration. But most of the time only 12 volts which suggests that actually no output. Does anyone know if the alternator has a clutch system ?
I don’t know but it doesn’t need a clutch. A switch or relay would be effective. SV Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
The best way to check is with an actual volt meter on the battery, in order to determine the battery health. Google "car battery voltage chart" and you'll find a pretty good little chart that shows voltage vs. charge %. Ideally, you want 12.65 to 12.75 volts when the battery is fully charged. The car always has a load on the battery, so that might pull the voltage down a bit. Compared to how the charging system on the 458 worked, I always thought the 488 setup was screwy. My experience with the Braille i48CS was that it was always kept 100% charged in the 458, but not so in the 488. With the 488, I had to top off the battery using a charger, in order to fully charge the cells. With the 458, a good drive would do it for me. Ray
I have noticed the same thing on my 488. Someone on the Chat had a post about it a while back. I gather that Ferrari feels that if you want to optimize performance on the track you should have the system charge when braking and never charge when accelerating. If that gets you home with a poorly charged battery, so what? Race cars always put their batteries on a charger when not in use and you are expected to do so as well. So you should not worry about leaky electrical systems that can't hold a charge if you park the car for a few days. Oh, and radios that are hard to tune don't matter either. Or, for that matter, squeaky brakes. But in spite of it's shortcomings as a road car, I still love mine. To borrow a quote from the Godfather ll, "This is the life we have chosen".
no, but not fully charged either I think. If I still had my 488, I think I'd have started keeping my digital volt meter in the car to monitor the charge state of the battery. Ray
If charging only on decelerating than at constant speed or acceleration the battery would experience much higher than parasitic drain as compared to stored with no tender. The ECU traffic when running would be magnitudes greater and so would the resulting power consumption out of the battery. Any other accessories such as radio, AC, lights, etc. would drain directly from the battery as well. I'll bet the alternator is more intelligently controlled with timers, monitors and state machines to optimize best charge for best performance. If not it should. Can't believe someone has not characterized this yet with an attached voltmeter. No one has mentioned yet that they fixed the semi-on brake lights either or if the Pista does it as well.
No fix on the semi-on brake lights as I have asked several times. With regards to the PISTA there was too much light to see if they were on ( It was the show room )
Have noticed the same on my voltmeter as reported above. When I made inquiry with the techs some months ago - due to the ongoing battery issues - it was explained that the alternator had a clutch drive which kicked in and out only to produce enough power to run the engine and systems and that's all - meaning it wasn't there to keep the battery at full charge. Odd I know but that's how it is. He said if the driving is all performance then the alternator won't make power to charge and its really only in very light or off throttle applications that the alternator will engage to start producing charge. Seemed stupid to me that the alternator was not at least set up to keep the battery always at full charge and then kick in and out to accommodate for maximum engine power output!! It's a Ferrari i suppose! Being able to start it is not a guaranteed thing apparently hence the need for the trickle charger as standard equip. Terrific!
Mine is on third battery in 6 years. Useless. Now I have to drive around with a Noco booster so I don't get stranded again. The dealer tells me the everything is working as it should, no faults. So reading this thread seems consistent -- the car just won't charge the battery sufficiently and you are always sin jeopardy. Useless.
