Battery charging?

On my 612 I had one factory tender go bad. Bought a replacement, also factory, and haven't had a problem since. It cycles between the orange (1/2 battery symbol) and green (full). You may have just caught it during the "orange" cycle. With a good and fully charged battery it does not take long to reach the green and cycle between orange and green. After a drive it sometimes start in "green", other times in "orange".
Jes

 

Cycle through the buttons from charging to off and back to charging and the green light may come on for a few seconds and then it may go back to orange. That's my experience using a 3300 C-TEK on my BMW.
Yes the green light should come on when the battery is fully charged and yes it is charging when the orange light is on.

 

Sean, your charger is not designed to recharge your particular battery from a discharged state. That's why it took so long to show a green light. To better understand this, have a look at the 3 technical references I enclose below, regarding your vehicle and charger:

The regular FIAMM battery for a Scaglietti 612 is rated for 100Ah (AMP-hour capacity). I would expect the Sessanta to use the same or larger capacity battery. You can check your owner's manual to verify.

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At the same time, CTEK appears to realize the XS800 (one of its smallest capacity chargers) is often too small for the battery being recharged (see yellow highlighted text). I suspect this is because many XS800 were either supplied to or sold to car owners who naturally felt the charger would be able to recharge their car's battery should it become discharged. Unfortunately, it's not so straightforward.

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To best understand this you may want to refer to the CTEK troubleshooting manual. The XS800 appears to be an older CTEK model but you can download the troubleshooting guide here.

On the 2nd page of the guide you will find the "CHARGER AND BATTERY COMPATIBILITY" chart. If you go through the instructions you will note the XS800 is one of the 2 lowest capacity chargers and that they are not designed to recharge a 100Ah battery.

The chart only rates the XS800 to recharge a 60Ah battery and it seems to indicate the number 60, which may mean 60 hours recharge time. There is no indicated recharge time for batteries at 100Ah or above for the XS800, which explains why your charger took so long to show a green light.

Here's my suggestion. Fully discharged batteries are best recharged by the dealer or a reputable garage or battery supplier. They have special fast chargers that can often fully recharge such batteries within 1 hour. You should only use your battery tenders to keep your batteries topped up. If it is possible to remove the battery you should contact the dealer to confirm and then follow the owner's manual and remove the battery to take to the dealer.

If you should for some reason expect to often encounter a dead car battery or cannot get it to a garage, you should consider buying a heavy-duty recharger and only use the XS800 to maintain the Sessanta's battery. This is likely the same for the US-3300 charger supplied with my California 30. It's really only meant to keep the battery topped up. In a pinch they may be able to recharge a somewhat discharged battery but it would take a very long time if it works at all.

Batteries and battery charging are often a complex mix, with many technical factors that are difficult for car owners to anticipate so your situation and experiences are not unusual at all. I've been there…!

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NOTE: you may also want to charge up the battery enough so that it will start the car and then drive it where the garage can finish the charging. However I would not do that on a Friday or Saturday; and preferably only do it on a weekday morning after you inform the garage that you are coming, in case your car stalls on the way and won't restart. Driving it at highway speeds for a good 20-40 minutes should also help if the car's charging system is working properly.

If you try this, make sure you don't turn off the ignition until you're sure the battery's in good shape and sufficiently charged up - and that's something best left up to the garage to determine.

 

Glad to share some of the information I've come across. As you can tell, I've had battery problems of my own in the past. Enjoy your car!