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CTEK 3.8 or CTEK 5.0 Experiences and comments please


PaulBSpit1500

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1 hour ago, Pete Lewis said:

disconnecting the battery whilst charging is a pretty normal requirement 

even jump starts  its best to disconnect the supplying unit saves any spikes from upsetting any electrical brain devices  diodes or chips

Pete 

 

What? Disconnect the vehicle you are jumping from? Never heard that one and certainly never done it. If the battery on the car to be jumped is that flat, it will suck all the power out of the doner battery! Often, some revs is needed to get the voltage up to compensate for the discharge!

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3 minutes ago, Pete Lewis said:

  its your risk  spikes are unpredictable ....the being helpful can end up with you £££ out of pocket when the ecu get stitched up 

or reversed polarity blows things     easy done    seen a good few over the years 

  

Reverse polarity is careless.  Black to black and red to red is not hard. 😂

 

Spikes on Ecu’s?  Not likely - the battery is a ruddy great capacitor so would take a heck of a spike to get to the ecu’s - especially on modern cars. 

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27 minutes ago, Anglefire said:

 Black to black and red to red is not hard.

Sadly it's also not reliable if the "other" car is German.

But I agree the ECU should be designed to withstand anything you'll get from jump starting another vehicle properly. Unless you have a French car - some of which do seem to suffer terminal ECU failure from jump starts.

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Interesting. I jumped off my bmw and it was simple - the battery is in the boot, so there is a positive post covered by a red (from memory) plastic cover and a large spade for want of a better term for the -ve under the bonnet. 
 

French. Ah yes.  They have a habit of engineering the wiring as thin as they can get it and it fails regularly- particularly at the door joints. 

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Quote:- French. Ah yes.  They have a habit of engineering the wiring as thin as they can get it and it fails regularly- particularly at the door joints. 

I had a Citroen (BX) at one time, I too think the French have a special "thin wire" factory?. Try to connect a Tow bar wiring loom?.  Nobody really likes "piggy back"/ splice connectors but for quick a quick job they usually work. Not with Citroen wiring they don`t, either you have no connection OR the connector actually cuts the wiring!. Other wise the BX was actually a good bit of working kit. Especially for fording flooded roads in deepest darkest Somerset.

Pete

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1 hour ago, Anglefire said:

I jumped off my bmw and it was simple - the battery is in the boot, so there is a positive post covered by a red (from memory) plastic cover

OK, it's probably improved and a lot of cars have red plastic covers on the +ve terminal. However, a few years ago when it wasn't so common to have such covers, a lot of German built cars followed the Bosch wiring colours, where the battery cables were black and brown... and brown was negative!

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My Skoda's battery went flat early in the Pandemic - I had a dashcam wired to the live side of the battery (Now switched!) and because I didn't drive the car for a while was enough to drain the battery.  - So yes driver error, but also change of use!

Wifes battery went flat too - that had been left even longer without being run - and nothing other than the usual radio etc powered. Recharged it but wasn't happy so replaced the battery and has been fine since - the battery to be fair was the original - 10years old.

The Spitfire I can leave for months and it starts ok. But that has been given a new battery because it was showing signs of weakness - and I didn't like the posts at the front, so the new battery has them at the back.

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