Battery woes.

[dereksharpuk]

RogGT-R said:

Sorry to hijack - been reading this with interest (am looking to push button on the Rosso/Crema F12 at JCT Leeds) and I appear to have a massive problem in that a rent a garage space in London which is underground and has no power sockets.

Options?! Thanks in advance.

Need electricity. The battery will go flat in about 7 days, especially if a tracker is fitted.

[RogGT-R]

dereksharpuk said:

Need electricity. The battery will go flat in about 7 days, especially if a tracker is fitted.

Thanks - problem is that actually isnt an option (mainly because there isn’t any!)

I wouldn’t use as tracker - car gets stolen I don’t want it back frankly and never found they actually reduce insurance premium to cover the cost of the annual fee.

Irrespective, 7 days for a modern car seems utterly preposterous to be flat? Surely it’s not that bad? Could you use a battery charging pack which you charge weekly (I could wheel it back!)

[RogGT-R]

dereksharpuk said:

Need electricity. The battery will go flat in about 7 days, especially if a tracker is fitted.

Thanks - problem is that actually isnt an option (mainly because there isn’t any!)

I wouldn’t use as tracker - car gets stolen I don’t want it back frankly and never found they actually reduce insurance premium to cover the cost of the annual fee.

Irrespective, 7 days for a modern car seems utterly preposterous to be flat? Surely it’s not that bad? Could you use a battery charging pack which you charge weekly (I could wheel it back!)

[red_slr]

You could look at an anti gravity battery with "jump start". They are not cheap but they do offer batteries for Ferrari.

You would be looking at £900 ish I think.

[Taffy66]

red_slr said:

You could look at an anti gravity battery with "jump start". They are not cheap but they do offer batteries for Ferrari.

You would be looking at £900 ish I think.

I've fitted one to my 458 after suffering problems with parasitic losses if the car was left in the garage for longer than a week..Mine is 40Ah however i strongly advice fitting the 60Ah battery on any Ferrari.

[carspath]

dereksharpeuk - Thank you for keeping us informed , and also for the useful tip re disconnecting the conditioner at the car end .
It would be great to hear from you again re what the health check reveals , ie if it was simply the battery or if there was/is another factor .

Thank you once again

[RogGT-R]

red_slr said:

You could look at an anti gravity battery with "jump start". They are not cheap but they do offer batteries for Ferrari.

You would be looking at £900 ish I think.

Thanks appreciated. I could drop o be of those in then run it once a week I guess?

Or, in the garage, there is a socket about 30 m away so could plug it in for an hour each week maybe on a CTEK 7.0 to top off?

[craig511]

What about a solar charger as above?

Don’t they still work off artificial light and most garages in London are well lit aren’t they ?

[dereksharpuk]

carspath said:

dereksharpeuk - Thank you for keeping us informed , and also for the useful tip re disconnecting the conditioner at the car end .
It would be great to hear from you again re what the health check reveals , ie if it was simply the battery or if there was/is another factor .

Thank you once again

No worries, that is what this forum is all about. I never knew that disconnecting the conditioner at the wall (just to give it a rest) would drain the battery, but I'm sure that what mine did. Once of course the battery gets much below 9v a conditioner will not charge it up. DL did fit a temporary battery to get it back to the dealership and it started first time. So I suspect it was the battery, especially as it is 11 years old. Maybe, like aeroplanes, one changes some components on time rather than condition. This might have been rather a problem if I was far from home.

[Taffy66]

Battery woes are an enigma which can confuse even the best mechanics in my experience..There are so many factors or issues which manifest themselves as a faulty battery..Everything from a loose fanbelt,worn alternator, any myriad of loose connections all the way to a worn wire and an incorrectly connected earth..It really is mind boggling however its always best to fit an overkill battery seemingly much more powerful than specs suggest.

[RogGT-R]

So after trekking to my garage I have found, by the opening gate, there is a power socket which is live!

Now this does mean going up there (only 5 minutes from flat) weekly I guess to plug in and sit there.

If I got a brand new Varta Silver fitted to the proposed F12 and a CTEK 10.0, or whatever the best one they make is, anyone any idea how long I have to sit looking odd in a London garage each week I might have to do. Might get 'strangest post of the week' award here I am aware.

Assume I will have to do it once a week or so? These car things are a pain in the ass.

[ANOpax]

I have a Varta silver AGM battery and CTEK battery monitor fitted to my FF. Unfortunately my data log only goes back to December so it doesn’t include any holiday periods. But when I was driving it in February, it would take a couple of hours to reach full voltage again after half a day off the charger and a 30 mile round trip to the office. The ‘battery state’ metric didn’t even show a blip that day. Not the news you wanted but it’s possible that the charger was only trickle charging a slightly depleted battery vs your envisaged scenario where it could give more juice to a more depleted battery.

[RogGT-R]

ANOpax said:

I have a Varta silver AGM battery and CTEK battery monitor fitted to my FF. Unfortunately my data log only goes back to December so it doesn’t include any holiday periods. But when I was driving it in February, it would take a couple of hours to reach full voltage again after half a day off the charger and a 30 mile round trip to the office. The ‘battery state’ metric didn’t even show a blip that day. Not the news you wanted but it’s possible that the charger was only trickle charging a slightly depleted battery vs your envisaged scenario where it could give more juice to a more depleted battery.

Appreciated, thanks - would rather get the unvarnished truth and figure it out. I spent a lot of time (looking dubious no doubt) traipsing round the garage trying to figure how to get power round to the car without anyone noticing. Isn’t going to happen unfortunately.

Next plan is DC to DC top up charging with an massive RAC style truck jump charge battery to keep the main one topped up. Anyone done that with any success?