CTEK Bargain

Phil the Brit

Member
Messages
1,499
The only ones I have had go faulty are TWO Ferrari ones. One discharged the battery and the other just stopped doing anything.
 

Raffles

Member
Messages
130
I’ve got the 5.0, I have also hooked up their battery sense Bluetooth monitor. I swear by both products.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 

conaero

Forum Owner
Messages
34,594
Aldi ones where like £9 as they were getting rid of them. I bought 5 and they live at the workshop and are great.

The only thing you can’t do with any of these smart chargers is charge a totally flat battery. They just throw the bad battery error. You need an old style charger that just lobs in the 12v for 15mins then stick the smart charger on and it works.
 

midlifecrisis

Member
Messages
16,102
Aldi ones where like £9 as they were getting rid of them. I bought 5 and they live at the workshop and are great.

The only thing you can’t do with any of these smart chargers is charge a totally flat battery. They just throw the bad battery error. You need an old style charger that just lobs in the 12v for 15mins then stick the smart charger on and it works.
I found that too with CTEK etc, smart chargers are too smart.
They try to charge your dead battery and give up. I found that an old skoool DC power rAMPED up could resuscitate a deeply discharged lead-acid (wet or gel).
Once a battery started to accept charge, turning down the amps and trickling it did the trick.
 

rs48635

Member
Messages
3,181
Aldi ones where like £9 as they were getting rid of them. I bought 5 and they live at the workshop and are great.

The only thing you can’t do with any of these smart chargers is charge a totally flat battery. They just throw the bad battery error. You need an old style charger that just lobs in the 12v for 15mins then stick the smart charger on and it works.
Or connect half decent battery in parallel which fooled my ctek 5.0
 

conaero

Forum Owner
Messages
34,594
Whilst on the subject of batteries, Yuasa, terrible, once flat won’t re charge but will after a week of soak charging. Bosch and Exide very good.

I have a Varta in my Opel GT. Been in there 5 years, car driven maybe 200 mile’s in that time. Left it over the winter was still 70% charged. I’ll be giving them a go in the Strad next time I need one.
 

azapa

Member
Messages
1,300
jumping on here a little: anyone know of a good quality maintenance charger that does 6 and 12V?
My Aldi one bu66ered up my original battery, and the new ctek 5a has been great, but only does 12.
Need it for the 356. Thanks
 

mjheathcote

Centenary Club
Messages
9,033
jumping on here a little: anyone know of a good quality maintenance charger that does 6 and 12V?
My Aldi one bu66ered up my original battery, and the new ctek 5a has been great, but only does 12.
Need it for the 356. Thanks

Yes the lidl one does both 6 and 12v
 

keith

Member
Messages
624
I’ve got the 5.0, I have also hooked up their battery sense Bluetooth monitor. I swear by both products.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

I use an older generation CTEK battery maintainer, and apart from a bit of a dodgy function button it keeps my battery fine for months at a time.
One question re your CTEK Bluetooth monitor, I have read some very negative reviews regarding the Bluetooth connection and general reliability of the application. How has your experience been in this regard?
 

StuartW

Member
Messages
9,306
I have a CTEK on the Stradale and an Optimate Lithium on the Trofeo and both work perfectly well. With so little use for both cars this year, I am would imagine that they have saved me from having to replace at least one of the batteries through lack of use