I keep my battery on trickle charge via a CTEK MXS 5.0 as I sadly don't get to drive it very frequently.
Woke up to a sunny Sunday last weekend and excitedly jumped in for a spirited drive only to find the battery not able to turn the car over and to add insult to injury I was then deafened by the alarm going off in the garage. I tried a couple of CTEK regenerations on it over the weekend but it keeps tripping out at stage 5 (according to the manual this means the battery won't hold a charge).
I have a Bosch S5 010 in the car which is around 5 years old. I know these cars are hard on batteries but it did surprise me a little that the battery has gone this quickly when it's always been kept on trickle charge.
I'll buy a replacement but my question is this; could it be the way I'm charging the battery that has led to its unexpectedly short life?
Until a year or so ago I used to charge it via the ciggy lighter socket but after a couple of episodes of the CTEK dropping out I figured it might be more reliable to switch to charging via the battery terminals in the front. Easy enough to leave the clips on the terminals permanently and just pop the frunk lid and unplug the extension cable each time I take the car out.
The CTEK manual instructs charging via battery + and - terminals and looking at the 996 FAQ on battery issues it seems others also charge this way, but digging around I have found a PH post which says you must use an earthing point rather than the battery negative or you're likely to reduce the life of the battery as you miss out the 'little black box' that provides feedback on the status of the battery to the charging source. Is this true for the CTEK MXS 5.0 does anyone know or is it clever enough to not require this? Could connecting directly to the terminals have contributed to my battery's (relatively) short life?
Woke up to a sunny Sunday last weekend and excitedly jumped in for a spirited drive only to find the battery not able to turn the car over and to add insult to injury I was then deafened by the alarm going off in the garage. I tried a couple of CTEK regenerations on it over the weekend but it keeps tripping out at stage 5 (according to the manual this means the battery won't hold a charge).
I have a Bosch S5 010 in the car which is around 5 years old. I know these cars are hard on batteries but it did surprise me a little that the battery has gone this quickly when it's always been kept on trickle charge.
I'll buy a replacement but my question is this; could it be the way I'm charging the battery that has led to its unexpectedly short life?
Until a year or so ago I used to charge it via the ciggy lighter socket but after a couple of episodes of the CTEK dropping out I figured it might be more reliable to switch to charging via the battery terminals in the front. Easy enough to leave the clips on the terminals permanently and just pop the frunk lid and unplug the extension cable each time I take the car out.
The CTEK manual instructs charging via battery + and - terminals and looking at the 996 FAQ on battery issues it seems others also charge this way, but digging around I have found a PH post which says you must use an earthing point rather than the battery negative or you're likely to reduce the life of the battery as you miss out the 'little black box' that provides feedback on the status of the battery to the charging source. Is this true for the CTEK MXS 5.0 does anyone know or is it clever enough to not require this? Could connecting directly to the terminals have contributed to my battery's (relatively) short life?