Edis1234

Since the covid lockdowns the stop start has never recovered and still not working even though the cars starting to get some more use.
mid like to get a suitable battery charger and give it a good charge to see if it will recover.

what chargers do people recommend? And is there anything special I need to do to charge it or is it just a matter of connecting to the terminals under the bonnet?

Egonvdv

from what i hear ; CTEK — Maximizing Battery Performance is very good

most of their models have a "restoration " function, which you might need

Edis1234

It was the CTEK ones I’ve been looking at but was hoping someone might recommend a particular model.

JTK44

FWIW: I have a 25 year old Sears battery charger with 10 and 2 Amp settings; In the spring and the fall, every six months, on the 10 amp setting I attach the charger to my battery overnight. The next day the charger indicates a full charge on the battery.

To me a battery charger is like gas: they are all about the same.

Just my $.02.

The_Judge

I bought a CTEK 40-206 MXS 5.0 Fully Automatic 4.3 amp Battery Charger and Maintainer 12V from Amazon: About $90 plus tax, free shipping. Works great.

The G Man

Battery tender is also a good brand, they have been around forever. Not sure if you have AGM batteries, if so, make sure the charger you buy is compatible

MikeO3

I have had the CTEK (56-959) MUS 4.3 TEST&CHARGE 12 Volt Fully Automatic Charger and Tester for sometime now.

cetialpha5

Yeah, OP doesn't need to go crazy with a fancy charger that does all sorts of functions that he doesn't need. I picked up the charger below years ago when it was around $20. 8 amps is a decent charge rate and I don't like maintainers anyway, when you leave them plugged in for a long while sometimes they go bad and end up cooking the battery. Better to just throw it on a charger once in a while and just fully charge it when needed and then just disconnect it. I've left fogs lights on before and came out to a dead battery, about 6 hours later on the 8 amp charger the battery was charged.


I suppose there's newer no name chargers out there that have better displays and a few more functions.

Here's a 10 amp one that's ranked #10 on Amazon's list of battery chargers and about $26.75.

The G Man

The idea is never to let your battery go totally dead, it will lower the battery’s capacity. CTEK is rebrand as Porsche charger, battery tender and schumacher are also very good brands.

CaliBenzDriver

We all get lazy and simply hook-up the charger without disconnecting the battery, right?

That's usually ok but note you don't want to use the "Restore Mode" or "AGM Mode" with battery in circuit.
These 2 modes involve higher voltages not so compatible with pricey electronics. Besides RTFM says to always disconnect batt!


Having a charged up battery keeps the electric load down during start and subsequent charging. The engine runs with less hick-ups when the voltage is well above 13Volts.

Bloom_Phaze

On modern Mercs as most would know, if you disconnect your battery completely you loose ALL the cars settings…all of them. So do you lads run some sort of battery saver to the pos terminal whist you charge your battery?

CaliBenzDriver

Mochi mochi kumbahoa how did you get everything 100% so backward: Google translate - LOL?

Nevermind, you can use a simple 9V battery maintainer to tame your fears.

Rebooting modern MB computers is truly one of the best temporary medicine against "sleepless SAM" draining system AGM - Zero side effects on settings, roof, windows...

Hundens

Costco is your friend. They sell one for $20 less than regular retail. CTEK is the historical choice but I had one fail and it cost me a battery. I have one of the cars in storage year around.

Bloom_Phaze

Made me laugh the coffee right out of my mouth, thanks for that.✌🏻