Just finished putting my car back together for Donno next weekend. I charged the battery up last night and it started the car this morning OK. I went for a drive and stopped at a mates house, turned it off for 5 minutes and it wouldn’t bloody start again. Got home and tested the battery and it is fubbard. I am gonna replace it with a nice new one, but I am sure this one has died because it is always left to go super flat before I come to use it again, so I am going to get a trickle charger thingy to keep the next battery in good nick.
I want one that will not over charge it and stuff. I did do a search, but couldn’t find a difinitive answer.
Options from halfords but if you are looking for something with a good reputation the CTEK XS3600 seems to be the one to go for. Offers a quicker charge on a flat battery than the cheaper XS800.
xs3600 is about �50 and the xs800 is about �30.
Another vote for Optimate here - recovered completely dead batteries for me before (so dead that a normal charger won’t even register that it’s connected).
I have the mr2 (yeh in know bummer etc)Elan, Exige and bike on various chargers and they all do the job. Elan fired up 3rd go this Saturday (after being stood for 6 months) for the MOT trip in the Snow!!!
Are the CTEK and Maplin models like for like ?, the Maplins one is abit lacking in the technical department.
No idea - haven’t compared the two!
Before fitting the electical cut out on my car, I used to use a pikey Halfords version which cost �19. It did what I wanted it to do - maintain the battery at a good level of charge. I didn’t need to receive a text message everytime it switched itself on or off
Maplin one looks like it does exact same at the CTEK … which is what I now have … a conditioner rather than charger.
I tried the cheap option with a small charger … but they dont stop charging when the battery is full and I ended up with Acid bubbling out and a knackred battery.
Safe on all battery types. Charges the battery fully then switches over to top up/trickle mode automatically. Got it from a local motorfactor and paid �30.