FF battery dead after sitting one day

Glad to hear it was only a defective battery. It must be rare that a battery goes kaput in 3 months but there you are.

Let us know what they find out about the rive gauche.

 

Glad to hear it was a simple fix. Most often its not that the battery went bad, its that the battery was bad from day one but it took a little time to degrade enough for you to notice.

 

Urp. Hopefully they will know you were kidding... won't they?

 

1. A while ago I accidentally came upon the dealer's technician driving my 458 in a road test. He was going soooo slow, and maneuvering to avoid potholes he evidently knew were there. I trailed him for a bit to see what would happen. Nothing ever did. Clearly he was taking it very easy with the customer's car, as well he should because there was no reason for him to do otherwise on this occasion.

2. I am not surprised that the battery was the problem on the left bank codes as well. Simultaneous electrical/computer problems sometimes have a common source.

 

Very nice Rick. Glad it worked out as something simple.

 

I am a new Ferrari Owner. Purchased a 2011 California with only 3,500 miles on it from the Ferrari Dealer here in Westlake Village. After the car sat for a week the battery was totally dead. I brought it to the dealer and they agreed to have it checked out for free as I have an extended warranty and also because they agreed that should not have happened. I told them I wanted them to check all of the electrical systems to make sure there was no unusual drain

They sent the car to service, checked all electrical and said "drain was normal but battery was old and weak" so they replaced it last week with a brand new battery and I picked up the car last Saturday. I drove it a lot this week including a 20 mile drive to Malibu and back Friday night and a short 5 mile drive today and it did start fine.

However when I got home today I thought I might as well plug in the trickle charger since I wasn't sure when I would drive it next and it is only showing three orange lights! And its been 3 hours and still on 3 orange lights not coming back quickly.

How could that be if its a brand new battery driven a lot this week including today? Is there something possibly wrong with a drain that they didn't find when it was at service? Or is this common when you first plug in the trickle charger?

All ideas really appreciated

Richard

 

Late model Ferrari’s usually need to be on a trickle charger if not being driven. Even if you think you’ve been driving a lot . I think the rule of thumb is usually after a week you need to plug it in but I plug mine in all the time due to past experience. The cars have a parasitic drain when they are turned off.
There are tons of battery issue threads on this forum if you want to find out more information.

As far as the charger lights how did they look in the morning? 3 hours is too short a time frame to make a determination.


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i dont know about this - my 2012 ff ate batteries for the first few years and wld always need to be on a trickle charger. i feel like there was an update that they did because for the past 3 years i can let the car sit for a couple weeks with no problem.

 

THANKS so much for the reply. After about 6 hours the trickle charger showed full but still isnt it odd it was down to only 3 orange bars only two days after a long drive? Also I think people have recommended there are better trickle chargers than the ferrari one that came with the car. Do you agree and if so which one would you recommend. Thanks again!

 

Being down to 3 bars after 2 days doesn’t sound crazy. Parasitic draw is the culprit.
There are better ctek trickle chargers but I’m not sure of the model numbers. The Ferrari one you have is a ctek Charger. As long as it works I’m not sure you need to change it.


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It is news to me if they rolled out an update . A couple of weeks is usually pushing it for me but sounds like you are lucky . I don’t have an FF so not sure if the update you mention is specific to that car.


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What brand is the new battery they put in? Hopefully it's a good one, ie Interstate, DieHard, Varta.

 

So this is weird Has anyone seen this? Perhaps a bad trickle charger?

The car was on Trickle charger for 1.5 weeks and all lights were lit. So I drove it this am about 25 miles came straight home and plugged in the trickle charger and only 3 amber lights came on (out of 7 total lights) So I waited about 6 hours and then 6 lights had come on so I tried this..... I just unplugged and plugged back in the trickle charger, literally 60 seconds later, and it dropped from 6 and being green to only 3 amber bars. Of course there is no way the battery drained in 60 seconds so perhaps a bad trickle charger? It is the Ferrari one that came with the car. All thoughts and ideas welcome

 

If you bring the car in have them check the trickle charger and the draw on the battery. The draw should be less than 25 mA I’m told. Mine was 35 and I had a string of dead batteries despite the trickle charger which was not working correctly. Replaced it and no problem. Pulled all things out of car at rest- iPod, phone charger etc and no problem. Odd.

 

Some of this sounds similar to my Cali when I first got it, although not the level of severity you describe. As you have a new battery, I would also invest in a new battery tender. I switched to a CTEK 7002 after installing a new battery in my 2011 Cali, and, knock on wood, haven't had any issues in about 2 years. I charge in "snowflake" mode since I have an AGM battery...T

 

Thanks so much for the help support and guidance

 

SO Bought the CTEK 7002 Charger as was recommended above and it shows the same weirdness as the Ferrari logo trickle charger. I can unplug it for 5 minutes then plug it back in and the battery only shows 1/2 full but within 4-5 hours shows full. The westlake village Ferrari dealership is saying this is normal trickle charger behavior but I believe I am hearing differently on this board Please let me know. Thanks for all the help

 

That doesn't sound right. We had a power outage a few weeks ago. Lasted about 3 min. I went to check the Cali and it was red, one notch below green. Checked it an hour later, it was green...T

 

As you were asked previously, did you get a Ferrari OE battery or did your dealer install an aftermarket battery. Hate to tell you this, but if your dealer installed a Ferrari battery, there's a very good chance that you are back at square one.

 

One other thing that popped into my mind, which I did not see here. Do you have HELE (stop/start). If so, the batter requirements are different than non-HELE cars. I recall a thread here in which someone's dealer/tech had installed the wrong type of battery. Also, as our friend from Copenhagen said, it is possible you got a bad OEM battery...T

 

I know that this is an old post, and you've likely figured it out by now, but the CTEK battery maintainer LED lights (on the device itself) are not "charge level" of the battery like the bars on your phone, but rather the stage of the cycle that the battery tender is running. I can open the door of my car (interior light comes on, window drops) and two or three lights might go off for a while. From a CTEK manual (your particular charger may look different or have a different number of lights).

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