I have been using the CTEK 3300 charger since I purchased my car 4 months ago. The very first time I used it, it took around 24 hrs to go from amber to green. The charger is always hooked up whenever the car gets parked in the garage every night. Generally, when I take the car out for a short spin (2-5 miles) and park and hook up charger, the amber goes to green within an hour or two. I took my car out today and drove over 70 miles on a straight highway run. When I brought it back and hooked up the charger, it is now over 7 hours and the light is still amber. Shouldn't the long drive be enough to get the battery close to the full charge without the charger? Why after short trips the amber goes to green so quickly and now a long straight run requires longer charging? I'm going to hook up my old Sears engine analyzer to the battery tomorrow to see what the alternator is putting out. Is this normal for our cars? Richzak is the expert on this charger and would probably have a good idea. Thanks all.

 

Boca:

Go to the CTEK and press the mode button and circle it around back to the CAR icon. The CTEK should go GREEN. If not and it remains AMBER for more than 15 to 20 minutes, then somehow the battery has had an excessive drain. Let the CTEK go it's normal course under Amber for a few more hours. Let me know how and if this works.

 

I would suggest putting on a volt meter while the engine is running and see what the voltage is. I suspect for the Ctek to be in the yellow range for so long that the battery voltage is below 12V. Normal running voltage should be around 13.8 - 14.2 volts. With all power shut down the battery should sit at no lower then 12V. You have a 2010 so now have a 4 year old battery which may or may not have been taken care of. If the problem continues then I would do a load test to see how good the battery is.

 

Agree with the above........the CTEK will do it's job, but if there is a problem with the battery itself and can't handle the drain, it may be time for a replacement if it hasn't been done already. The CTEK will maintain the battery, but if it can't handle the load due to age, the CTEK won't make it new.

From other posts, I just bought a Shumacher Battery tester from Amazon for only $29.99 and tested my battery. The device provides data to determine how good the battery really is. I am glad I now have this tool in my tool chest. No more second guessing.



If you have any questions about the battery, just about any auto parts store has a battery tester/load tester/charging tester and will do the test for free.

I have the feeling the CTEK is GREEN this morning.

 

The CTEK turned Green after 8 hours. I believe I found the problem. I hooked up my Sears Analyzer and the alternator output is between 13.3-13.4 volts. With the car off the battery reads a little over 12 volts. The battery was replaced 2 years ago. I still have a month left on my warranty so I'll be off to the dealership. I assume they would replace the alternator with a rebuilt? Will they give me a hard time about the output if the battery doesn't go dead?

 

I am not sure what the dealer will say...on this one. I had the confidence in the CTEK, but battery should probably be in slight excess of 14v when charging. Hard for me to say if it's an alternator problem. I am sure someone else here might know like WhiteXKR or Ngarara as these two individuals seem to be the Jaguar experts on tech issues. Have to say member Ngarara is one heck of a Jaguar expert. He seems to know everything. He's an impressive member here. Might want to PM him or WhiteXKR.

 

I didn't know that anything other than a weak rectifier or something internal on the alternator would put out a lower than normal voltage. It's just that I don't want the dealer to tell me it's normal or if the car always starts it's good enough. I've very much aware that an alternator that cannot keep a car fully charged will ultimately shorten the life of the battery. If nothing else, with our fragile electrical system, the least we want and need is an alternator that puts out the maximum voltage required.

 

Totally agree with you. Hope the dealer provides sound advice and takes care of you. They charge back Jaguar USA for the "in warranty" service so they have nothing to lose.

 

Do we assume that the voltage did not change as you rev'ed the motor. Meaning did you get a higher reading at say 2000 rpm? If it stayed at 13.3-4 then the voltage regulator is not working correctly. You should be getting a minimum of 13.8 or it should be at 14.2 in order to charge the battery.

 

I wasn't able to check at 2000 rpm due to the positioning of the analyzer and my sitting in the seat. In the past, most of my cars alternators read maximum output at idle. My G35 was always 14 or a little higher. I'm just not keen on going through the Jaguar politics of what acceptable threshold guidelines they use for replacing these parts. My 13.3 output may not be within Jaguar's threshold but for any layman it is not acceptable.

 

I revved it to 2500 rpm and got it to 13.8 where it stayed even when it dropped down to idle. That should be encouraging. I need to get a better voltmeter/battery tester. Richzak mentioned one he bought on Amazon. Does it measure alternator output as well as the batteries condition?

 

Here's the links....

BT-100:


Here's a YOUTUBE on this item works.


Hope this helps....

 

If you start the car and the voltage is around 12v or less and then you rev the engine up, say to two grand and then the voltage goes up to say 14vdc or thereabouts..........I'd say the alternator is shot if this Jag alt has a internal voltage regulator. When you rev it and the voltage come up........it's self exciting itself. In other words the alternator is not getting excitation voltage from whatever regulates it. In some cars the regulator is part of the ECU. Jags.......got me. I'd have to go look at the wiring diagram and I'm too lazy to do that.

Or someone could have put on a itty bitty alternator pulley to cause this.

 

Another way to test the Alt, attach your battery tester. Idle should be higher than 12Vs. Turn on the lights, watch the reading. Should be higher, turn on the fan full speed, watch the action of the needle. Should be 14+. Alternators by nature should produce above 12Vs above normal idle.This being stated, internal regulated units require an initial higher RPM (similar to generators) to "excite" them. Once this occurs, will continually charge at a lower RPM. There may be some variances, but, this is typical of their behavior. The more load the higher the charge rate. A weak Alt, for whatever reasons, will not keep up with the loads, lights, fan etc. As mentioned, fully loaded and 1200 + Rs, should be in the 14V+ range.
Perhaps there is a weak cell in the battery, in which case, a load test may indicate this.
Good Luck......

 

Very interesting thread as I have had to go the CTEK route recently following early warning loss of oomph when starting. Using my existing CTEK cabling I rigged up a Digimeter so that I could see it while driving. The following are preliminary results taken today.

Ignition OFF = 12.34v (In car with door closed and lights off etc.)
Ignition ON = 12.22
During START = 10.xx
After START = 13.77
DRIVING = 13.32 (Never saw it above 13.5)
Stopped at IDLE = 13.30

Car now back on CTEK for overnight charge.

Will follow up with further readings, showing voltage taken outside car after full charge with CTEK disconnected, door locked etc. Also on as much loading as I can throw at it as suggested by RedRider48

BTW although my Digimeter if of a good quality I have not been able to check it against a good Standard.

 

Where is your meter connected? Particularly in a Jag, with its battery in the boot, measurements taken at power pickup points under the hood or in the passenger compartment will be significantly low and varying due to accessories switching on and off, due to quite significant voltage drops in the long wiring runs.

The most meaningful voltage measurements are those taken with the meter directly on the battery terminals.

 

I have a CTEK Comfort Indicator connected to the battery via +Pos to +Post and -Neg to local earth and not the battery post, then a Comfort Connect Extension cable connects directly to the CTEK charge cable for normal charging. I purchased an additional CTEK Comfort Connect Plug Adaptor to enable me to connect my Digimeter directly to the Extension cable. So in effect I am using all CTEK quality cabling direct to my Digimeter from the battery.

 

After my nightly charge and a green light on CTEK, I took my car to my local independent where he hooked the battery up to one of those larger machines on wheels. I don't know what model it was. At startup and at idle the alternator was showing 14.1 I put lights on and fan and it stayed at that number. After shutting the car off, he did a load test which showed 9.5 He told me the battery was fine because it didn't drop any further from that number. From what I'm reading on this post, I seem to differ. Shouldn't it be higher than that? I'm not sure what the cranking capacity is on our cars but even on the Schumacher load test demo for the 600 cranking amps it was reading 10.2 What do you guys think? Do I have a weak battery? Is that why it took so long to recharge on my CTEK after a 70 mile straight run?
One more thing to add.....After the load test and hooking the CTEK back to battery, I got the green light in less than 2 hours.

 

The following link gave me a different perspective on doing a battery load test. If I agreed with this method, my 9.5 looks like it's right were it should be. When you hit the link, scroll down to "Load Test".




Battery Testing, Maintenance And Myths

 

Yeah, but you have to do their specific load test, which is to disconnect the battery from the car, place an artificial load equal to half its cold-cranking amperage (that's a BIG load) across it for 15s and see what the voltage ends up at.