California 30 Trunk Release ?

Mike...I am about 67% sure it is counter-clockwise to turn the key. But, hopefully, someone can confirm or deny 100%. Mine is getting its annual service, or I'd check myself...T

 

Welcome back Tom!


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Thanks. Another thing, when my trunk acted up soon after buying it, I found that it helped to push down with a goodly amount of force on the trunk while turning the key. So, I got my wife to press down on the trunk lid, while I operated the key...T

 

I've never had to do this but my key only turns anti-clockwise (with springy resistance) when the lid is open.

If your battery is fully discharged (11.7v or lower) the charger (tender) supplied by Ferrari with the 2013 car may or may not be up to the task. It depends on which model of charger you have. Look on the side of the charger - if it says "Type model name US 800" or "12VDC 0.8A", it will take forever and probably won't work. 0.8A is much too slow. You want to see 3.6A or Model 1065 which delivers max 4.3A - those will charge 4 to 5 times faster and should work.

If your battery is flat it may need a day or two to revive it enough to start the engine.

Before you hook up the charger, make sure you use a multi-tester to get the voltage so you have a baseline to compare. 12.6v or higher without charger attached, is fully charged.

Short trips will kill your battery, especially if it was never fully charged. The important measure is a battery's STARTING STATE OF CHARGE, how full the battery was when it was originally put into service. If it was not fully charged originally, it may never work properly if you didn't do long fast drives to charge it fully. You'd be amazed how often new batteries are not actually fully charged when they are put into service.

IMO Ferrari owners should own a multi-tester and check their batteries from time to time. Modern cars tend to use a lot of battery current, even when parked.
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Mike..I think the side marker lights - if those are the lights you are talking about - only come on once you crank the engine.

Does your car have HELE (start-stop)? If so, I might look into upgrading the battery conditioner. Let me see if I can find the thread on this...T

Edit - Found it! This is the thread.

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/threads/ferrari-california-battery-life.562438/

The battery tender I have is nearly identical to the one F-chat user 4th_Gear posted a pic of (the one w/ a snowflake on it, which fits my car's persona to a T!) in post # 16

 

Glad to see you got the trunk opened. You should let your CTEK 3300 run over the weekend before contemplating other actions.. Check the voltage with your multi-meter to gauge state of charge.

The 3300 is actually a decent and safe charger for your car. It *IS* a proper charger. Do not use old-fashioned chargers as they will likely damage the battery. You need a modern microprocessor-controlled trckle charger that can dynamically sense battery condition and deliver multiphased charging. You can buy faster CTEK chargers but they will only be about 2x as fast as the 3300.

If you want to disconnect the battery, you must first lower the driver door window because the car raises the glass when door is shut. If you try to open the door without power, the glass will tear up the door seals because it will stay up. Killing the power also clears memory the car may have stored regarding some performance parameters but I believe it will relearn them. If your car were HELE it would involve additional setup procedures that most drivers would have problems figuring out on their own. - but your car is not HELE.

 

Will the car start? Did the windows lower when you opened the door? Once inside, do you have the key in position 0 or II? I thought the windows didn't operate unless the engine was started.
T

 

Well, I'm glad you battery appears to have been recharged. The "christmas lights" display on your dash are probably due to low power problems that accumulated while your battery was limping along. Now that the battery is back, those errors may simply be finally getting displayed. I am just guessing but spurious error lights are definitely the norm with a dead battery.

I can't be sure why the window controls don't work and you are probably correct that the system needs to "get flushed" with a hard reset. It's been 5 years but my HELE-spec battery was DOA within a week after I collected my car from the dealer. I brought it back and they did a hard reset for me because my car has HELE and requires a special procedure afterwards. Non-HELE cars are simpler to reset. Since it looks like you were able to open the driver's door, just leave both doors open before your disconnect the battery. Here are the instructions from the owner's manual (below). Since you are at home, I would give it a good 30 minutes' wait to make sure the circuits are drained before reconnecting the battery.

I hope this does the trick. Good luck!

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^I love a happy ending!
T

 

Hey Mike, I'm happy to see your battery and car are now both working again. Hopefully, it was just an issue with the battery not having started off with adequate charge.

The Odessy PC1350 is the correct spec for the Cali and is a premium quality battery that I believe is usually more expensive than the Interstate L5 size battery which I recall is the MTP-49-H8, also a very good battery with excellent warranty (30 months I recall). So your dealer did right by you with regard to quality.

Yes, it looks like you have to test your car a bit by "tempting fate"... and leave the charger off a couple of days. However, my car is always on the charger. With CTEK chargers you don't need to second guess, and try to "protect" the battery from overcharging. CTEKs are designed to be used every day so if you do that, you totally avoid issues with charging.

IMO a full battery is extremely important for power and performance when you drive fast - the car will go faster, run smoother on a full battery vs a marginal one. That's been my experience with BMWs. The battery supplies the sparks for ignition and if the battery is no good, the car will likely not be able to respond properly to aggressive throttle positions. 8000 rpm calls for a lot of sparks. My BMWs used to run a bit rough when their batteries were on their last legs. In a race car, the battery will always be fully charged at the start of a race.