Recommend a car battery trickle charger

[Gavin Smith]

As above any recommendations please

[Wombat3]

Gavin Smith said:

As above any recommendations please

If you are looking for something to leave permanently connected then CTek is the go-to.

[Roy C]

I recently bought a NOCO Genius2. It's a well-made reliable unit. NOCO make a range of battery maintainers, chargers and jump packs.

[Tiglon]

I bought a BMW branded one because, I believe, it was made by CTEK but cheaper. Did the job on my BMW for a couple of years.

[cliffords]

Had two CTEK chargers fail both about three years old .
One on a car one on a motorbike.

I have just ordered a NOCO replacement as my CTEK experience is not great.

[TV200]

Another vote for the CTEK. Brought for my Boxster and then used on bikes, cars and caravans.

[eliot]

Recently come "magcode" charger connectors - they were mentioned on an episode of retropower, i've fitted one to all my cars:

https://www.cerbera.co.uk/finally-found-the-perfec...

[boyse7en]

Another vote for CTEK.
I've had a motorcycle one for about 6-7 years and it spends all winter plugged into my second bike.
Bought a car one a couple of years ago to do similar.

Both are plug in and forget solutions. Just let them do their thing and they keep the battery topped-up and ready to go.

[Mark A S]

On recommendation last year i bought a Ctek having always used Accumate chargers with no issues.

The Ctek cooked my battery whilst on 24/7 maintaining charge, thankfully i happened to go in my garage and recognised the awful smell a cooked battery makes.
Now, whether the battery was on its last legs, or the Ctek ruined it i cannot say for sure, but since i have never used it again and continue with my Accumates.

[Om]

I have had a couple of NOCO chargers - one for about 5 years and one for around 3 years. They are well put together and the accessory range is pretty broad. They just work. They seem well regarded as an alternative to CTEK and work out cheaper for a similar spec.

[Watcher of the skies]

I've had a ctek for 20 years looking after the battery on my MG. The original MG battery is still alive at 23 years old so it's money well spent.
The micro switch packed up a couple of years ago but with some fiddly soldering I managed to replace it.

[Hoofy]

I have a Noco 5 and it's great for trickle charging and desulfating.

[M138]

I’ve got C-Tek . I did have a Lidl one that worked well and was cheap. If you leave any of them on over Winter without using the car you might need to put a normal charger on your battery come Spring. The C-Tek/ Lidl charger stops the battery from totally dying over Winter and lack of use.

[Hoofy]

M138 said:

If you leave any of them on over Winter without using the car you might need to put a normal charger on your battery come Spring.

Can you explain?

My Noco will charge up and maintain. Do some just trickle and not charge up?

[Olivergt]

I've had a ctek fail as well, was about 18 months old.

I replaced it with ... ( I'll dig out the details) On the recommendation of the manager in my local Halfords.

[LuS1fer]

Accuguard.

The one on my garage wall has been in constant use for 25 years, for my Mustang.

[Wombat3]

Hoofy said:

M138 said:

If you leave any of them on over Winter without using the car you might need to put a normal charger on your battery come Spring.

Can you explain?

My Noco will charge up and maintain. Do some just trickle and not charge up?

There is a school of thought that says its a good idea to turn these things off for a week every so often to let the battery dip a blt, and then bring it back up.

Obviously you never want to flatten a battery but some regular "exercise" is supposedly better for it than being held at 100% or close to it.

[Steve-B]

CTEK MXS5 is the only way to go in my book! Grab one at: https://www.ctek.com/uk/battery-chargers-12v-24v/m...

[RicksAlfas]

Wombat3 said:

There is a school of thought that says its a good idea to turn these things off for a week every so often to let the battery dip a blt, and then bring it back up.

Obviously you never want to flatten a battery but some regular "exercise" is supposedly better for it than being held at 100% or close to it.

That's what the CTEK "pulse and maintain" does. From their blurb:

"Smart chargers from CTEK move into pulse maintenance mode when the battery is charged fully. Rather than sending a charge and calculating what your battery needs, the CTEK charger will constantly communicate with the battery, and react and charge only when needed.

In the pulse maintenance mode, your battery is allowed to naturally discharge itself to a specific level before being charged fully once again. Not only does this avoid the risk of overcharging but, as the battery is being exercised as it would be during normal use, the lifespan of the battery is extended considerably."

[Stick Legs]

I work away 3 weeks on - 3 weeks off.

Both my cars live on C-Tek MXS 5.0 while I am away. Never had an issue plus I like the convenience of being able to run a dedicated cable for them.