F8 F8 Battery Dead - after 1 month

Dear All,

I collected my F8 one month ago in Maranello, and after just one month my battery went down twice, while i was driving. I was wondering if any other folks had similar issues, if so, which the root cause of it was.
And i also was wondering if anybody can suggest any specific battery upgrade, as i understand Ferrari's OEM Battery has bad reputation.
Any help is appreciated.

 

Very important that you keep the car on a batter tender when not being driven. Ferraris like their batteries.

 

Ill go out on a limb and say probably 99% of all Ferrari owners have had a battery issue.

IMO all dealers should change the battery before handing the car to you.

Change your battery.

 

Battery failed on my 488 after ~18 months. Replaced with an Interstate AGM. Thus far, no problem with my 11 month old F8. OEM Ferrari (Fiamm) batteries are problematic.

 

I drive my F8 spider everyday I always use the tender every night. My F8 battery went flat after a 35 minute drive averaging 65 mph. I stopped at the store to buy some food for dinner, only there about 15 min. Couldn’t start the car!

Ferrari uses one of the worst batteries in the business. Fiamm makes little boxes of garbage, IMO
I’ve owned 4 FCars all brand new. All driven every single day. I’ve logged 300,000 F. Car miles. All 4 of my FCars (360 California 458 F8) had their Fiamm batteries die in less than a year. All on the factory tender each night.

Finally I told my dealer to please swap out the Fiamm before they deliver the car to the customer. Now I use Braille in the 58 and F8.

Ferrari needs to solve this. Reminds me of cracking headers, crumbling engine mounts, fragile knobs and window switches, sticky buttons, failing leaking fuel pumps, etc etc etc

 

Wow that’s crazy considering how much you drive. Which battery do you use in the f8? Maybe I’ll switch mine out

 

Search "Braille i48CS" on the forum and you'll find some good info

Ray

 

i also have had mine under the tender, of course. The battery was a FIAMM. Now the car is at the dealer. I am keen to switch into Braille i48 CS as well.

 

Another option is to use a high quality AGM
The Braille works fine in the 458
I've only done a year so far with the Braille in the F8
F8 has a weird charging strategy Constantly varies from 12.2 to 13.7 most of the time Rarely gets to 13v

 

I’d prefer to be able to use the stock Ferrari tender so I don’t think I can swap for a lithium battery? Any high quality agm batteries folks recommended. I know I can search but feels like an appropriate question in his new thread. Thanks

 

The Braille i48CS will make your life a lot easier. I ran it in my 458 and also the 488. As mentioned, the 488 has a little bit of a screwy charging strategy (by comparison to the 458), although the Braille still works well. The only caveat is that occasionally it's not a bad idea to top off the Braille using their lithium charger, since the 488's charging approach doesn't fully charge it when driving. Overall, however, with the i48CS you basically don't need to use any sort of tender day to day, so long as you drive the car about once every 10 days or 2 weeks.

14.3 volts is what you really wanna see. For whatever reason, Ferrari in their infinite wisdom decided to change how the charging system seems to work on the 488.

AGM is a better battery, but not nearly as robust as the Braille. Also, the chemistry of the lithium cells used in the Braille batteries are going to give you a higher baseline voltage by comparison. Additionally, the discharge characteristics of the lithium cells are going to be far more tolerant of the parasitic draw when the car is not in use (lithium static discharge rate is about 1/10th that of a traditional automotive battery).

You are correct that you cannot use the standard Ferrari tender. However, the Braille battery doesn't really require much tending. In order to top off the Braille (when used in the 488), you can use the Braille tender directly on the battery posts, although it's a bit of a hassle in some ways. The other option is to use a lithium compatible tender (and they might have versions with the Ferrari style connector available and/or there are several threads showing how to adapt that).

The bottom line is that switching to the i48CS will make your life a whole lot easier. It removes the need to use a tender for the most part. The higher resting voltage of the lithium also tends to help the overall electronics of the Ferrari function better in my experience.

Search the forum for "Braille i48CS" and you'll find a lot of past information on the subject and/or I'm more than happy to answer questions here. It's a great upgrade to the Ferrari, although it is somewhat expensive. In my experience, it's a terrific upgrade and removes a lot of the apprehension associated with not knowing if the car will start or not. It also largely does away with the need to ever use that whole ridiculous battery tender solution that Ferrari has saddled everyone with.

Ray

 

Costco sells a decent AGM. The 488 uses a group 48 last time I checked.

Ray

 

You should top off the Braille using their lithium charger from time to time (every 3 months or so) when used in the 488, F8, etc.

Ray

 

My F8 spider battery is totally dead and won’t accept a charge after being unplugged from the tender for 24 hrs in -40 weather. Gonna wait till it’s warmer and reassess but the dealer is advising to get Ferrari roadside to jump start it. I’m looking into getting one of those portable starters. You guys think those are any safer? A portable battery you can use to charge USB devices with a flashlight (SOS mode included) is handy regardless.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

Hi Professor !
I am completely neurotic so I top off both 458 and F8 every day.

As I was driving the F8 this mornin, I tried to figure out the strange fluctuating charging strategy. I think the F8 uses something similar to what you observed in the 488.

Unlike the 458 which charges at l4 V plus change, the F8 tends to be at 12.3v to 12.7v
When you rev above 6.5 K then the charging rises to maybe 12.9v to 13v. I’ve never seen 14v—ever.

So this is maybe trickle down from F1. Not sure if Gaining 1-2 hp by sacrificing the battery is worth it, I looked in the owners manual to see instructions on how to swap out the Fiamm battery during a pit stop.

 

Yeah, I suspect it has to do with removing load on the alternator, but not sure.

I don't think topping off the Braille every single day is a good idea. Twice a month should be plenty. Lithium batteries usually operate best between 20-80% charge as I remember.

Ray

 

The trickle charger / battery tender and portable chargers should do roughly the same thing. They are just providing low amp charging.

-40? Yikes. I thought my upstairs was cold when the furnace was off.

Can you check your battery voltage using a digital volt meter? That will tell you a lot about the health of the battery.

Ray

 

I spoke three days too soon. My battery failed yesterday; waiting for the flatbed to arrive now.

 

My F8 was barely a month old when the battery failed. I had driven about 30 minutes then parked for 10 minutes and it would not turn over. Thankfully I had a new jump pack in the car. My dealer replaced the battery with an Odyssey ODP-AGM48. I was suppressed the replacement wasn’t factory but after some research the factory battery rarely seems to last. Thankfully it's the only issue I've encountered thus far.

 

Perhaps someone who works for Ferrari should read this

 

They are busy off making FUV's and electric whatever EV's

Ray

 

A former Ferrari CEO said they would never make an SUV.
The Purosangue is not an SUV . It’s an FUV. Okay!
A different Former Ferrari CEO said they would never make an EV.
But maybe an FEV!

 

Their SUV thing is very nice looking, but winning some F1 races would also be nice.

Ray

 

It’s probably a family member who makes the batteries and buttons that go sticky. So obviously they don’t give a crap. Lol

 

Funny driving home from CnC yesterday I stopped at a store on the way home. Left the car for about 10 minutes, and it didn’t turn over with the first push of the start button. Gave it a few seconds and then it started, but seemed to reset some of my electronics as the AC turned on and some other things were different. Perhaps some foreshadowing of impending battery failure? 2020 with 7K miles..little over 2 years old. Maybe go ugly early and buy an Odyssey, wonder if the battery is just a remove and replace or any special procedure?