458 My life before after a new battery

Late last year, I got a 2011 458 Italia. I love the drive but I haven’t been impressed by how finicky the electric is (frequent error messages) and the rather jerky transmission, even in Sport mode. Also, the car had trouble starting once in a while.

Well, all of this went away with the replacement of the battery (OEM). I expected the starting issue to go away and was secretly hoping it would help on the error messages. I didn’t expect the shifting to become so smooth though. My car is like new!

Thought I would post this in case some of you have some if the issues described above.




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I just installed a new battery in my 2017 488 and very pleased to report the same thing with smooth shifting... I've never experienced the car shifting like this as it must of had a weak battery when I first bought it a couple months ago.

 

same experience here as far as the error messages going away and start up being more crispy. i didn't notice any difference in shifts though

 

WOW
What battery did you guys replace it with?

 

I feel like my 458 is very jerky in regards to the transmission. Is this what you experienced and your saying it's now gone? Wonder how a new battery would change that?

 

Just to give an example, I had to bring the car to neutral when approaching a red traffic light as the down shifting to first gear was sometimes pretty harsh. Up shifts in sport mode we’re sometimes brutal, let alone those in Race mode. All good now. Someone on this Forum wrote about the fact that the battery has a big role to play with this transmission. If you find your transmission too harsh, changing the battery is not expensive and may very well do the trick. Good luck.


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Sometimes it's not just the new battery, but also the fact that you are clearing the ECU. A strong battery is really important also, of course.

Spring for the Braille i48CS - it's life changing for the 458. After installing that battery in my Italia, it was rock solid and never missed a beat.

Ray

 

DAMN that's a $2,600 USD battery , like over $4,500 over here with dealer profits

 

I just went for OEM...can’t remember exactly but it was around C$700.


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Costco also sells a group 48 battery that works fine in the 458/488. I bought one a while back when I sold the 458 and I think it was only a little over $100 or something.

Ray

 

Don't want to go cheap but certainly not that dear.

More interested in a fool proof battery more than anything not just a new OEM.

 

There aren't a lot of good options in between - that's sort of the problem I ran into. It's sort of a deal where either you go basically with a stock normal battery (and then soon you'll be having issues or the car just be living on the tender 24/7) or you go with the best, Braille. Braille is the Ferrari of car batteries.

The only other option is to wire in a 355/360 style kill switch and shut the car off and reboot it each time you're gonna drive it. On my 458, I had already started the process of installing a kill switch under the dash. However, when I decided to sell the car, I opted not to complete the installation, since the dealer wanted the car as close to stock as possible.

Ray

 

With the i48CS do you still have to have the car on a tender

 

No, not as long as you drive the car once every three weeks or so. Also, you cannot use a normal battery tender with the Braille battery, because it has lithium ion type cells. If it ever does need charging, Braille sells a charger that just clips directly to the battery. With the 458, the charging system seems to keep it fully charged. I ran the i48CS in my 458 Italia for about a year and never used the charger or any tender once - despite leaving the car sitting for 3 to 4 weeks.

The charging system / logic of the 488 seemed to work slightly different from the 458. On the 488, the voltage seemed to fluctuate around a lot more and I believe this resulted in the battery not always seeing a full charge. This resulted in having to top off the i48CS once over a 6 month period of use while in the 488.

Ray