Cheap Battery Conditioner/Charger (CTEK?)

[TTX50]

For those who are interested at this time of year, Lidl are selling their £13.99 battery charger again from Thursday this week. Looks suspiciously like a repackaged/rebadged CTEK MULTI XS 3600. I've been using the Lidl one for a while and it does the job well.

[sootyvrs]

One thing I noticed about the Lidl one is that it states it cannot be used while battery is connected to the car which suggests it does not have some of the protection that the CTEK has.

I read that from another forum where a guy has the Lidl one. I guess it's at owners risk if it damages any electronics if used while battery is connected up still to the car.

[sundayjumper]

TTX50 said:

I've been using the Lidl one for a while and it does the job well.

Same here. I bought two so that I could chop the croc clips off one and fit a lighter plug. Have used it (them) loads of times on various cars with the battery still fitted and it's been fine. Maybe new cars are more twitchy about these things ?

[Trev450]

sootyvrs said:

One thing I noticed about the Lidl one is that it states it cannot be used while battery is connected to the car which suggests it does not have some of the protection that the CTEK has.

I read that from another forum where a guy has the Lidl one. I guess it's at owners risk if it damages any electronics if used while battery is connected up still to the car.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why its a lot cheaper than the CTEK version.

[Richard Hamilton]

I have both Ctek and Lidl ones, and use them on my Cayman and 3.2 Carrera without any issue - battery connected.