612 discharging conundrum

Friends,

Happy New Year again! I hope the new decade has started well for you all.

I wanted to ask for any advice on a bothersome issue with my 2007 612 HGTS with 18500 km.
Last summer I drove the car sporadically (as usual) but it was always kept on a CTEK MXS 5.0 charger constantly when not being driven.

On one occasion in June however, I drove the car with my parents and parked it up as usual. When I returned 10 days later, the CTEK charger was flashing with a warning indicating that “no battery was found”. I assumed that the battery being an original Ferrari one had of course seen it’s last days and on the advice of 360Marnix here on FChat purchased a great Bosch battery. Changing the battery of course did the trick and the car was mobile again. I drove the car in August a reasonable amount, had it serviced and then parked it up, again connecting it to the CTEK.

When I went back in September I was stunned to see the same recurring issue... the CTEK charger indicated that it could not find the (new) battery. I assumed this might be an issue with the inbuilt charging port in the 612 (although the fuse for that connector looked fine) so I reattached the CTEK charger with crocodile clips directly to the battery terminals. Again, no battery found!

Does anyone have any thoughts? What could be draining the battery faster than the mains are charging it? Why should the battery not be detected whether charged or empty? The car is kept in a garage, covered but unlocked and unalarmed (given previous access issues when the battery first went dead) so the alarm system is certainly not the culprit.

Any ideas? Thanks all.

 

Hi Robin, hi 360,

Thanks guys.
CTEK definitely fine as I have two and both are doing the same thing.
Battery worked fine when first connected and seeing as the same sequence of events had happened on the two batteries, I think a drain is the likely explanation.

Sadly I am technically incompetent so can try and buy a multimetre and see if there is a drain. However, if the battery is now dead, will I get any readings anyway or do I need to do all this once a new battery is in place?

Robin, I am from the UK and get back often enough. Where would you recommend going to for a good multimetre?

Thanks!

 

Robin, thank you so much. I also loved Maplins :-(
I will pick something up then and let you know how it goes.
I think I will need another new battery in the car to get it going before I can diagnose the drain however.

We should catch up in the UK at some point

 

Hi Don,

Thanks for this. I wonder if that’s what it is because it isn’t detecting even the dead battery through the crocodile clips or through the Ferrari battery port connection, plus the same pattern of events has happened twice, first with the original Ferrari battery which was seemingly fine until I connected the CTEK charger, and now again on the new Bosch one. I will try and get hold of another CTEK charger and see if it detects and recharges the flat battery.
This honestly sounds like the most plausible explanation given that if the CTEK charger was functioning any drain would have to be greater than the voltage being fed through the mains!

Cheers!

 

Thanks 360!
I bought the battery online so it might be difficult to get them to honour such a warranty or even test the battery as there is no physical store. I do agree that the battery seems like an excellent one (and I appreciate your recommendation)

 

Hey Robin,

I do cycle through the mode button too so that it goes through car, motorcycle, AGM and Recond mode before coming back to car, but I have never tried a lingering click. Hmmm... will be trying that before buying a new charger. And yes, I too am really really hoping it’s just a faulty charger and not anything else.

 

Hi 360, hi Terry,

Thanks for the information guys.
I still haven’t solved my problem but I know the CTEK MXS 5.0 is working as I connected it to my BMW DD and it lit up normally. The MXS 5.0 also has an AGM setting on it... so once I get to the bottom of this I will only use that setting with the Bosch.

I have a NOCO GB70 jump starter but its cables are short so it’s hard to jump the battery while it is in place in the car. When I did try, it seems the battery volts were below 2v as the NOCO wouldn’t start the battery. There is an override function for forcing power into a completely dead battery but my strategy now, when I get the time will be to get the battery out of the car, override jump it out of the car (just to be safe) and when it has some volts in it I will connect it back to the CTEK to see if it can bring it back to a full charge and back to health.

I must still have some sort of serious electrical drain somewhere though... although why or how that can drain a battery that is connected to the mains via a trickle charger is still beyond me!