2011 California problems

After all of the lights came on did you shut it off then restart it? Often that fixes it. But if it happens really regularly then there is a problem. I have a 2012 Cali, not stop-start, with no problems after 20,000 miles. I only use the charger when I know the Cali will stay parked for more than two weeks. Although my FF needed a replacement battery (not under warranty!) after 1.5 years of driving and 32,000 miles. It began lighting up the lights with a "Total Electrical Failure" warning if the FF sat a few hours. With a restart it all went away. The radar detector was making some crackling sounds during the start as well. Battery fixed it.

Rick

 

You're in luck.

My 2013 Cali30 also has HELE and I'm probably the only FChat member who has a HELE California and can comment in a practical manner about it. I've had my car since April 2013.

HELE and non-HELE cars are completely different. You cannot apply non-HELE concepts and parts for a HELE car. They bear little resemblance because of the pervasive nature of the different technologies used for the HELE implementation.

HELE generally works well but I believe many dealers are simply not familiar with STOP/START systems and they don't have proper experience setting up or maintaining the AGM batteries used in HELE vehicles. Of course, their customers then also do not get the proper information on how to maintain their cars. I would have expected the UK motoring market to be more knowledgeable about STOP/START as you are more integrated with the continent where the technology is commonly in use. So I'm surprised they appear to be confused as well.

The previous owner of your car was probably not a technical sort and gave up on the car after he had problems with the battery and electrical system.

The HELE system has a special control system for reducing engine torque used by the AC compressor. This was designed to reduce the parasitic effect of the AC on engine torque output as well as improve the car's performance as this control system reduces the AC system's torque requirements by 35%.

I would speculate that when you turn off the AC under certain circumstances (e.g. when there is low back pressure from the exhaust system), the control logic may inadvertently stall the engine by miscalculating the ignition timing.

I have not experienced this problem in my HELE car.

You will also get spurious system errors when your battery is unable to supply constant voltage during periods when many systems are drawing heavy current from the battery. Once the voltage drops below threshold, many system sensors will either send out an error, malfunction or simply stop working.

I've had spurious errors reported on my car. They were ignored with no apparent consequence.

When a battery is unable to keep up in a car - you will get all sorts of weird errors and malfunction… until your car refuses to restart and strand you. When your car doesn't have enough electrical power, just about everything will eventually fail. Some systems are pickier than others and they complain earlier. A battery can regenerate some capacity if you let the battery rest for a bit, some batteries like the AGM type can do this within a few seconds but at some point, there is no longer any stored capacity and no amount of waiting will allow the battery to regenerate a charge.

Your dealer is not actually doing you a huge favour here - your AGM battery should have a 30-month warranty covering it. So it's not actually good will but perhaps they simply want to maintain a cordial decorum and that's OK so long as you know your rights and they don't take too much credit for it.

I understand and here is what I suspect the problem is.

The regular Ferrari battery charger for the California is labeled (at the back - see 3rd photo) as a CTEK 3300 US "equivalent" but it is not exactly the same as a CTEK 3300 US. Look at the photos I attached. Here is the red Ferrari unit, which actually looks like a lower CTEK US 800 model (1st photo) in terms of features as evidenced by the functions it displays. The US 800 only puts out 0.8 Amp max. The Ferrari and CTEK 3300 put out 3.3 Amp max.

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And here is a true CTEK 3300 US unit - notice the true CTEK unit can be put into different charging modes? The important one is the SNOWFLAKE/(battery with the red top) symbol.

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The "battery with the red top" is an iconic symbol for the OPTIMA Red Top battery which is a well-known AGM battery. This mode is for charging AGM batteries as well as for charging batteries under cold conditions. The technical reason is that the tender will charge at 14.7 V instead of at 14.4V, which is the normal charging voltage.

This is very important. I have spoken with the technical staff at Odyssey Batteries, another well-known AGM battery brand and they told me in no uncertain terms that their AGM battery should only be charged at 14.7V (in the car as well as outside, on a tender).

So I suspect the Ferrari tender, while it has the 3.3 Amp capacity of the CTEK 3300 US, it does not have the multi-mode capability of the authentic 3300 and cannot fully charge an AGM battery (the true 3300 is a MULTI US 3300). The green light condition was probably an incorrect sensor reading from the Ferrari charger. Your AGM battery was not fully recharged when the green light lit up.

This also happened to my car and the battery eventually pooped out. I had to figure it all out on my own as my dealer was also not knowledgeable about STOP/START and AGM batteries. I needed to sort out the problem and ended up contacting and speaking to technical people at various service departments and at companies across the continent.

Well, as I said, I'm surprised the UK dealers are not familiar with STOP/START systems and AGM battery operations. My dealer had the same problem but my car is also only the 2nd HELE California they have ever had and I'm probably more technical than the other HELE car owner.

Luckily, the folks at FoO were very nice to deal with and we worked on the problem together. They responded positively when I forwarded them with information I gathered and they immediately replaced my battery tender with this other CTEK unit which charges to a max current of 7 Amps, twice the capacity of the 3300 (potentially twice as fast or more with AGM batteries):

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I strongly suggest you change your Ferrari battery tender to a true CTEK US 3300 or better still, the CTEK US 7002 that I have. There are even higher spec units but I do not believe they are necessary. If you keep using your current Ferrari charger, your new battery will likely also expire prematurely, again.

I already posted on an earlier thread about the batteries in the FF and F12 - another very knowledgeable FChatterer informed me the FF/F12 use the same AGM batteries used in the HELE California. Even regular FF and F12 cars use the AGM battery. It's clearly stated in their owner's manuals.

12-cylinders spinning at 8000/8250 RPM will demand up a lot of current, more so if you are running other auxiliary electrical systems. If you want a fast car, the battery has to deliver all the current needed to fire those cylinders at the correct voltage, especially if you constantly do fast runs with the car… over relatively short distances.

AGM batteries are designed to support frequent deep-discharge and their long warranties will tell you that the manufacturer is not crazy when they offer a 30-month warranty for a battery that dies in 6 months.

Yes, their AGM batteries can die in 6 months but I suggest it's because they are not being properly recharged and not because the batteries don't work properly. Constant deep-discharge applications are hardly new in the battery industry - marine and commercial applications require that all the time. It's old news. The real news are STOP/START, hybrid brake energy regeneration…etc. It's how these technologies are being deployed that's new for the dealers. Our dealers are simply catching up on this stuff at the moment.

 

What a fantastic helpful post 4th gear

 

Do you mean your car restarted but display error messages or did it not restart even after 4 or 5 attempts?

Did you buy the MXS 10 from the dealer or from a 3rd party? The Ferrari uses a special Ferrari connector for the battery charging port in the trunk so make sure your MXS 10 comes with that connector. I believe the connector can be sourced from 3rd parties but they would be a special optional item and you'd have to ask for it.

Do not use a battery tender that does not use the Ferrari battery charging port. Otherwise, the MXS 10 has 50% more capacity than the CTEK (Multi) US 7002 as well as a more informative display. My US 7002 was provided by my dealer.

Yes, the battery's identification and performance specs should be visible on the top cover of the battery. The California mounts its battery just in front of the engine, underneath the air intake hoses. A Ferrari FIAMM battery will likely have a yellow label that says "GENUINE Ferrari" in addition to the FIAMM logo.

It's not absolutely necessary to use the original Ferrari/FIAMM battery so long as it is an AGM battery that is certified by the Ferrari dealer to be compatible with the HELE car. This protects your car warranty in case a battery-related issue should develop with the car at a later date.

Ask for the work order from the dealer and make sure the work order fully describes what the replacement battery is.

The dealer's garage has to properly set up the battery and the HELE system also needs to go through a special set up procedure. I had described that in an earlier post some months ago. There is a Ferrari technical bulletin that describes the procedure. It's not complicated.

Once your dealer understands the differences between the regular vs HELE California as well as the proper way to handle AGM batteries, they should be able to service your car and help you keep it in good running order. Technically-speaking, the HELE car is slightly superior in performance to the regular car because of the way the HELE components conserves engine power, allowing more of it to be used to drive the car.

I have to run, but before I leave here's an interesting tidbit I recently read from a R&T article (Nov 2013) regarding the F12 vs Aventador:

"…a few miles southwest of Maranello, shortly after the F12's dash displays the comforting words "electrical system failure,…

…it's not just the driver getting hot and bothered. The cars are, too. The Ferrari might have faltered with its dashboard warnings, but the Lamborghini throws in the towel first, telling us there's a fault with its engine start/stop system. It has the stop bit nailed. Start is proving more troublesome.

By the time Lamborghini's engineers have come out and charged the battery (apparently drained by all our stops with the lights on),…"​

 

Thanks! I'm glad to be of help.

 

Looks like you're good to go. Just wondering though, isn't tomorrow Queen Vickie's birthday? Cheers.

 

Thanks for the super helpful post. Question. Does the tender automatically detect the AGM battery and go into the right mode? If not, how do you employ that mode?

 

Hi there. I had a June 2011 Cali and I was one of the first ones in the UK with HELE. For the first few months I had quite a few issues with it and the battery...
Ferrari basically didn't know enough about the car to fix it immediately but after a few tries including changing the battery it was all fixed and never had a problem with it. I had the original trickle charger and used it any time I left the car for more than 4-5 days.
Maybe your dealer doesn't have much experience with HELE? It has been around for 3 years now so they should be able to fix it....

Who is your dealer? Where are you based?

 

The trick to maintaining a healthy lead acid starter battery is to never let the battery's capacity get drained past a certain percentage. For the AGM batteries, that percentage appears to be 50%.

If you exceed the limit of discharge for a given lead acid battery, even if you can recharge it, the battery will have sustained damage and will have lower maximum capacity. This fact explains why some batteries "seem to recover" once you detect and correct the charging problem and other batteries (and cars) do not recover until the person servicing the car corrects both the damaged battery and the improper battery maintenance procedure.

In a nutshell, you may get away with a drained battery if you recharge it and keep it recharged before it ever experiences an "over-discharge" incident. My understanding is 50% discharge is equivalent to a car starter battery dropping to 12.2V vs. a fully-charged 12.6V battery (under "normal" ambient temperatures). Even if the battery works again, it will have lower capacity and expire earlier. And if you keep over-discharging it, even with the best charger, it will die even faster.

Plug your battery tender into your car's recharging port when you are not using the car - that's why it's there.

 

The car's ECU (Engine Control Unit) is the computer that controls all the systems that run the engine. Some cars have more than one ECU. It's normally a circuit board that is encased in a metal protective box with large cable connections that is mounted in the passenger or engine compartment. If an ECU replacement is required then either it was defective or it may have sustained damage or was incorrectly flashed (EPROM programming) while in service.

If you want a better sense of control over how well your car is working you should ask the garage to explain why the ECU is being replaced - was it defective or damage and if so, how it was damaged and the nature of the damage.

Good luck!

 

I got a big Ctek too. (Use it to charge my BMWs)
But how did you solve the problem with the different charging connector, which is required for the California.

 

I went through my emails and invoices from the time when I had issues with the battery and HELE in my Cali and noticed that they replaced the battery twice but more importantly I think, there were twice some special updates to some ECU in the car in order to solve the HELE issues.

Maybe you should ask your dealer if those updates were ever installed on your car?

 

Hope they'll get it fixed soon.

Would like to see a picture of the California adapter!

 

Thats the standard adapter that only comes with the complete replacement charger set and is not available separately so you cannot attach a standard ctek to the factory socket

 

Thank you for the pics.

That's what I need!
Where can I buy this part?