612 OTO battery maintainer

New system - forget where the hookup is, since I drive mine daily and never hook it up.

 

The charger that came with my '08 OTO hooks up to a receptacle in the passenger side of the trunk.
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Rich- Here are the instructions that come with the charger. Save and blow up if it is hard to read.

Taz
Terry Phillips
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Rich- I picked up one cheap from a fellow FChatter. Unfortunately it appears there is no way to adapt it to my 575M, so it is just a lump on my counter right now. At least it has a cute little red Ferrari nylon carry case and an instruction booklet.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

hello,
seems to be the same as this one

http://www.ctek.com/EN-GB/Buy-Charger.aspx?charger=xs800

 

What comes with the car is not really a charger- its a tender. The difference is a tender will keep your battery level where it is but it really doesn't add charge. In the case of my 599, the tender basically couldnt keep up with the load the on board electronics wants and the battery was completely dead after 10 weeks in my garage during winter. I would imagine the 612 has a similar level of electronics and I would recommend getting one of the more robust CTek models fitted.

 

I think something is wrong with either your car or (more likely) the charger. It should have no difficulty maintaining your battery charge indefinitely.

 

I'm really sorry, Taz. I thought you, of all people, would be the guy to make it work, since, as I told you, I couldn't find a way to adapt it myself. Doesn't Ferrari have some adapter or info on how to splice the right plug on?

 

Allan- I thought so, too, but it did not work out that way. These chargers are hooked up through the CAN to the Motronic ECU by that fancy, molded in connector. It looked like that might unscrew, which it does about a half turn, but the wires are still connected. The charger's male connector and the late model Ferrari's female connector send a signal to the ECU not to allow the engine to start if the charger is connected to the car. Whether this is just a function of the connectors acting as a simple shorting plug or something more sophisticated, I do not know. Probably need to contact CTEK directly, but not sure it is worth the effort.

I figure some late model US owner will eventually want a spare or a user charger to keep his original clean, and he can have the bloody thing cheap. Learned something new, so not a total loss.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I ended up getting a CTEK-branded tender and cigarette lighter adapter for a small fraction of what the Ferrari branded CTEK tender cost me and the thing works great. Are we fools for a logo or what?

 

Don, my dealer told me they had the same issue. I suppose it could be a bad batch of them but apparently the car wants more than 0.8A to run its electronics even when its sitting and the entry model CTek that comes as the tender only provides 0.8A.

 

Don, Jerry- 800 milliamps is a huge drain for a car. The charts in Ferrari WSMs usually only go to 400 milliamps and the recharge time recommended is very short at 400 ma. How long can you leave your cars off the charger and still start with no problems? The 612 comes with a larger battery, but last time I looked, the 599 used the same battery as the 575M.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

Are you possibly leaving the trunk open? I could imagine if the trunk light were on, it might use that much power. Otherwise, it's pretty hard to imagine-- as Taz says, that's a lot of power.

 

I left my 612 sit for about a week, today it would turn over slower but not start.

I plugged in the batt tender and wondered how long one would expect it to take to fully charge up, or do I need to use a good batt charger now?

Seems odd after just a week it would go mostly dead, has never done this before, car is only one year old and has always started well until now. Maybe a bad battery?

Any thoughts on tender vs. a good charge? I have tenders on other cars and they seem to work fine, maybe the Ferrari one is not that great?

I do have the trunk closed while plugged in to keep the trunk light off.

 

Do you mean you left it for a week without the tender? I would think it should still start, but you never know. I've found my 612 to be very sensitive to voltage drops, so if I leave it more than 2 or 3 nights, it goes on the tender.

I'd plug it in and let it charge for a few days, and then see what happens.

 

Time for a new battery. The trip across the pond and time in the dealership really shorten battery life. Time spent trying to revive a dying battery is wasted.


Taz
Terry Phillips

 

The battery in my 612 was installed in Dec. 2009, but it went bad last week and had no cranking power. Got it started after using regulat charger as the tender did nothing and drove to the dealer, during trip the panel said trans failed, trunk open warning came on, said alternator failed, etc. Dealer checked it out and installed new batt under warranty again after only three months. It needed to go in anyway as both headlights had haze inside the sealed units and they replaced them with new ones again under warranty. I heard they are about $3,000 each! I get it back in am, so all should be good again, the 612's do need a good battery!
Glad for the warranty!

 

Nope- was closed.

 

John- Glad that fixed it. The 612s actually come with a more powerful battery than at least the early 599s, but too much down time seems to kill the FIAMMs fairly quickly. Here is a chart with FIAMM applications for most Ferraris.

Taz
Terry Phillips
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I've had my 599 spend 2 winters on its battery tender for a month or more at a time. The first battery tender that came with the car was faulty, but the replacement was fine. It starts and runs perfectly when I unplug. I have a ctek equivalent unit on my 355. That thing seemed to bring a battery back from the dead. It claims to be able to undo sulfating, and I believe it.

 

That makes sense. There is no reason why a battery tender should not be able to keep up with any drain a Ferrari can generate without an outright short, as long as the tender is not faulty. Tender operation can be easily checked with a VOM meter.

I am, however, surprised Ferrari used the same size battery in the 575M and 599. The 599 has much more electronic equipment. The 575M is Jurassic in comparison.

Taz
Terry Phillips

 

I've been told, or read somewhere, that if you lock the car, it goes into a powersaver mode (or a sleep mode) and reduces the battery drain somewhat. Anyone know if this is true?

 

You've got 3 or 4 weeks before you start to have problems. I put on the battery tender if I haven't used the car for about 10 days.