CTEK Battery conditioners

R

RayM

Member
 Cheltenham
Morning all

Does anyone have much experience of these battery conditioners as I think mine is f****d

It has always worked fine until yesterday. When they are working the lights come on in sequence until you reach the conditioning / monitoring stage when it just clicks in and out as the battery voltage drops.

I had mine rigged up to the Z yesterday as I normally put it on every 7-10 days if I haven't given her much of a run.

It normally takes 2-3 hours to get to the monitoring stage but this time after 5-6 hours it would not go past the 4 light stage and was getting quite warm. I know there is no problem with the battery as its only 3 weeks old and she started fine on it too.

Sounds like I might have to bite the bullet and buy a new one :(
 
I dont use a ctek personally but an optimate which is essentially the same, it wont reach the monitoring stage till the battery is fully charged... now dependant on use and the last time i had it on this can be anything from 4-16 hours, they are only after all a trickle charger sending a very small current, i certainly wouldnt be ready to throw yours away buddy... any transformer will get warm in operation and these things are designed to run as long as required, if it overheats it should shut itself down. Leave it to run a while before you decide it knackered imho
 
mr.tourette said:
I dont use a ctek personally but an optimate which is essentially the same, it wont reach the monitoring stage till the battery is fully charged... now dependant on use and the last time i had it on this can be anything from 4-16 hours, they are only after all a trickle charger sending a very small current, i certainly wouldnt be ready to throw yours away buddy... any transformer will get warm in operation and these things are designed to run as long as required, if it overheats it should shut itself down. Leave it to run a while before you decide it knackered imho
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I hear what your saying Mr T but as I said before it doesn't take this long usually. Even when I had a knackered battery it only took 4-5 hours. I just don't want to knacker my new battery if there's something wrong with the charger.
 
Not heard of one going yet, do you have another car you can test it with?

I have 7 units in constant use and the temperature of them all varies a lot.
 
Apart from a couple of Carcoon battery conditioners, I also have one I bought from Lidl (or Aldi can't remember which) but so far it has given two years faultless service and only cost £12.99 with a three year warranty.

Every now and then it is worth looking at what motoring offers they have and at that price buying one as a back-up.
 
Back to square one. I think it's f****d.

Had it on charge for another 4 hours, again won't go past level 4 and now the error lamp has come on.

None of the faults listed against the error light are applicable so looks like it's knackered.
 
My previous ctek went bad at about 4 years old but had been used full time between two stored cars over the winters. In that case it was stuck in the discharge cycle and flattened the battery. Later model cteks comev with a 5 year warranty (I think?).
 
CTEK.PNG

I've circled something that may be of use to you, depends on the model & when you bought it I guess

Edit:-Ewazix beat me to it with the 5 year warranty comment.
 
srhutch said:
You are really meant to leave the conditioners connected all the time.
Click to expand...

So you are not meant to drive the cars they are keeping the battery in tip-top condition for then :P
 
TonyP said:


I've circled something that may be of use to you, depends on the model & when you bought it I guess

Edit:-Ewazix beat me to it with the 5 year warranty comment.
Click to expand...

You are right Tony, I can find the box etc but not the receipt and when you read the small print on the warranty they say return it to where you purchased with the receipt so I'm knackered.

I see they do a version now which also tests your alternator and a couple of other things so might go for that one
 
Update:

New CTEK purchased and connected up last night, fully charged and monitoring after 4 hours so it looks like my old one was F****d after all :(
 
glad you got it sorted :thumbsup: ... shame about the old one though, my optimate is 15 years old and still going strong and has been in full time use on both motorbikes and cars, only 25 quid too... i guess they don't make them like they used too
 
I also had a CTEK fail. The current Lidl units do the same thing and have a nice LCD dot matrix display to tell you wants going on. Rather than blinking random lights at you! Well worth upgrading to.
 
mr.tourette said:
glad you got it sorted :thumbsup: ... shame about the old one though, my optimate is 15 years old and still going strong and has been in full time use on both motorbikes and cars, only 25 quid too... i guess they don't make them like they used too
Click to expand...

I had one of the old ones before too, but gave it away with my Westy a few years back. Should have kept it. Nothing seems to last the test of time these days. We are such a throw away society now I suppose. :(
 
glad its sorted

problem with most guarantees is finding the chuffin receipt :headbang: :thumbsdown:
 
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