1. If its a daily driver you really won't need a CTEK - I used mine once every few weeks before I bought this house with the garage, it was parked somewhere else. I never needed any charge on the battery, it always ran fine when I did give it a run.

2. I'm struggling to find CTek failure that leads to fire, see above posts, I've been using maintainers for 20 years on motorbikes and never had a fire issue. I'll keep researching this though, I don't want my garage burning down. However half the petrol world store toys on maintainers, I have never heard of a fire. Not saying its wrong information, but I've never heard of it and can't find anything to suggest it has ever happened.

Hopefully jons can shed more light on this - if he has any direct experience of this it would be good to know the background and the details

 

Just found this...
https://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/...0&f=&t=1660338

I think from now on I'm going to limit the use of my battery maintainers!!! I'll bring them up to charge on a weekend once a month, and switch them all off once they go green.
I'll make it a first weekend of the month job.

 

I don't think Cteks are guaranteed to self destruct and I reckon many have placed chargers, maintainers, tenders and the like inside a sealed locked car. But the device does produce heat and should there be a failure of some sort, it is likely a greater risk for catastrophe inside rather than outside plus and noted above it makes it more convenient to view current charge status or lack of should the be a failure of the mains.

 

good to know. never owned a bike, never owned a battery that came with its own tube, and never seen anything other than a kind-of-firm black tube almost like a heater hose. haven't even opened the battery compartment in my XK. i'm the last person to trust on that. i wouldn't know how to test it other than just drip some battery acid through the tube and see what happens.

well it's not that i think you shouldn't trust yours as you have, because i think the likelihood is pretty low already and even lower with a quality maintainer that comes with high recommendations from the vast majority of users, but that that's why they write the manual the way they do. if they've told you already, then 1 in 500,000 units can fail catastrophically, and there's no serious legal consequences for them. mine isn't CTEK, just some no-name amazon brand. i only ever use it on batteries i've taken out of the vehicle and placed on an old floormat, with the charger/maintainer placed on the concrete, a few feet away from everything and both some distance from each other. the arrangement ensures catastrophic failure means the breaker trips, everything in there stinks for a week, and i have a pile of plastic goo to scrape off the garage floor. currently i just daily drive the XK and leave it at that.

 

I have been using the CTek battery tender for six years outside the car with nary a problem. The Ctek is mounted on a workbench adjacent to my XKR. I don't understand why one would want to keep the battery tender inside the boot when it in use. Particularly when the manufacturer advises keeping the tender outside the car.

 

Although haven't had any problems with my CTEK MUS4.3, a Battery Tender Jr. almost burned down my house.

I bought a Deltran Battery Tender Jr. from Amazon in 2010 that was made in China and had a plastic case. Within a few months, it stopped working, overheated and melted the plastic case. Fortunately, it was on the concrete floor in my garage. Otherwise, it could haved caused my house to burn down. It was the worst customer service I ever experienced and the warranty was a joke because the required "service fee" and return shipping was more than the cost of a new unit. I'll never buy another Battery Tender brand product again.

 

One thing about most "BATTERY MAINTAINERS" is that they do NOT have the Float Function. Once the Deltran Battery Tender brands top off a battery, they do NOT continue to charge anything unless they are disconnected and reconnected.
That's the same for most models of maintainers, they do not Float. They charge completely then turn off. Forever. Well, until unplugged and re-plugged.
The CTEK units float, as do only a few other brands and/or models of maintainers. They continue to monitor the battery and return to a low charge rate when the battery depletes slightly, therefore keeping a battery at peak charge All The Time.
I have one CTEK and two Schumacher brands, and yes, the Schumachers have a Float Function. I have tried a few others that do NOT have the float, and they were binned.

 

I've kept my Battery MINDer Plus maintainer on my XKR whenever parked in my garage for over 9 years without any problems. I replaced the battery once, about a year ago, with the same type conventional wet cell battery. When the battery is charging, the green light remains solid and once it is fully charged, the Battery MINDer Plus automatically goes into float mode, which is indicated by the green light flashing. The solid red light indicates that it's plugged into the wall socket.

 

Sorry Cee Jay, not buying that. My Deltran keeps my battery charged all winter. If it shut down, battery would probably be flat by spring.

 

That's what I do after my mates Steves ctek packed in , I chucked mine in the bin , buy a 10amp charger charge it over nite even once a fortnight. Been saying this about ctek for a while they ain't the bee all and end all .

 

"MOST BATTERY MAINTAINERS"..........
Evidently some Deltran ones float, but most do not. I dismissed the Deltran ones during my last research because I had a couple before and they all failed. I have had the Deltran brands hooked to my F150 for a month, the charger showed green, I disconnected the Battery Tender to drive away and the battery was below eight volts. Yeah, I was not happy.
After that, I disconnected the Deltran every couple days, and it would go from "FULL" indication to "CHARGE" indication and stay at Charge for a day anyway.
NEVER a Deltran for me again, ever.

My then research led me to discover that most of this sort of device do NOT float. Some Trickle, most just shut off forever.

 

On a side note .... can I hookup my CTEK to multiple batteries (3)? Would it have to be in parallel or series?

 

My CTEK MXS 5.0 definitely has a float function.

 

Well, because my XK sleeps in the underground parking lot of my residence and I don't want my CTek to be stolen. Simple as this.

 

You are fortunate if you have a reserved space with an electrical outlet that will reach your CTEK while it's inside the boot. Even so, a frustrated thief may damage the cord or do worse. It's sad that the world has come to that.

 

I have to use an extension cord to reach the nearest (common) outlet, but indeed, it's really sad to see what's the world has become. Already before, but especially since that virus struck.

 

Affording a garage in London buys you a Bugatti . lol Mine is parked out on the street charger in boot , Have to have cones and cable anti trip on foot path otherwise Never had any problems

 

With all the rain you get in London, aren't you concerned about getting electrocuted by a faulty outdoor extension cord?

I get it. It's living vicariously that makes you feel alive again while being locked down during the pandemic.

 

Blimey, proper can of worms this one!

My maintainers have always been ACCUMATE and RING - I've had others that completely fail in so many ways, these 2 makes for my bike served me well for many years, and with float I guess because I leave them for months at a time.
CTEK is a new thing for me, I just saw it recommended everywhere I looked.

I guess my takeaway is that anything can fail, and the safest thing to do with electrics left alone is switch them off. I notice my CTEK 10A charged in full within 4 hours from so low I couldn't move the drivers seat, so a day switched on once a month I think should be fine - to be fair I used to leave my XKR with no maintainer for up to 6 weeks without running without any problems as far as I can remember.

I recall reading somewhere that applying the handbrake shuts things down even more and stops battery drain, but don't know how true that is

 

Pretty simple, plug it in and leave it alone. Your battery won't 'Blow up!" Make sure your vent hose is connected. Often people install the wrong battery. They need venting, as it's in the trunk/boot.