I’m looking for advice and people’s thoughts on some battery chargers.
I'm looking to purchase a CTEK charger to help keep a V60 T4's starter battery fully charged as the car doesn't always get used regularly, and the runs it does do aren't always long either. The charger might also get used on a Toyota Yaris.
I can see from comments on here and elsewhere on the web that CTEK is a good trusted brand, I just need to make a decision on which model of CTEK charger to go with. I can see three models that look to be suitable, each with slightly different features, and some with a few extra features from one another too.
The Price difference across all three models is around £20 which when spending +£60 isn't an issue. I'd prefer not to purchase one, then later regret having not picked one of the other models having not fully understood or appreciated some of benefits it might have.
Does anyone own one of the following models? Are you happy with it? Is there anything in particular you like about it? or are there features of any of the ones I’ve listed which stick out as being a real bonus.
Next to each model I’ve noted what I see as key features and Positive or negative things about the models (sorry for the pun
).
CTEK MXS 5.0
More manual in terms of selecting what program you want, but once the program is selected it is fully automatic. You can select Bike, Car, AGM & Recondition modes. No visibility on how long before the charge is complete.
CTEK CT5 Time to Go
You have to manually select one of three programs: Normal, AGM & Recondition, again fully automatic once program has been selected. This model doesn’t have a bike mode I don’t think? But if bike mode is solely for a bike that is not a problem for me. (unless bike mode is useful for other applications I’d not thought about?). The charger shows you how many hours at most are left until charge is complete. I like the idea of this feature as when I use the charger, I’m likely to just use the charger when needed, so when I do use it, knowing roughly how long till full charge would be good to easily see. (I guess charge times for all the models I listed always vary depending on how much charge the battery already has to start with, and not just the charger running at a standard predetermined rate).
CTEK CT5 Start / Stop
Fully automatic, just plug it in and it does its thing. It handles normal cars and AGM. There is No Bike or Recondition function as far as I can see. No visibility on how long before the charge is complete.
When I mentioned to my Volvo dealership Technician about keeping by battery charged, they strongly recommended only charging the normal starter battery (ie. with battery still connected to car, battery + terminal to (+) Red positive lead of the charger, and (-) black negative lead of charger to the Cars chassis / grounding point, as described in the user manual). They said not to worry about trying to charge the AGM (Start / Stop) battery as trying to charge this is likely to cause the car to report all sorts or errors and cause all sorts of issues. The Technician said that by just charging the standard battery it would help the start / Stop one anyway. I’m not too technical and don’t understand why charging the standard battery would help the start / stop one. I will follow the advice I was given. Can anyone explain why charging the standard battery would help the start / stop one?