How do you hook up the transformer ? I’ve got jump leads so was wondering about trying to cobble something to link to the terminals. The Aldi charger won’t cut it because it’ll stop charging when the battery is disconnected.
■■■■■■. Guess what I just swapped the BMW for
just resorted to RTFM for the Suzuki and it’s 4 weeks for mine so I may just chance it as long as I remember to park it fully charged
I used an old Maplins bench power supply with little crocodile clips (below). When you pull back the plastic covers on the battery cable in the car you expose the raw wiring which you can attach these clips to, then it is easy to swap out the battery with the power maintained.
Food for thought. I don’t have a bench power supply but I wonder if a 9V PP3 or a 12V A23 battery would support it for long enough. As long as the car has gone to sleep and the draw is <40 mA it should be good for 10 mins.
New YAUSA battery fitted today and, thanks to the excellent advice on this forum, all the post-reconnection steps have returned the car to normal service. The information on the DCS/ESC was particularly useful, although I did forget the the second warning lamp needed a restart before it turned off.
Minor niggles were that I broke a clip on the battery cover, so I’ve ordered a new one from MX5Parts, and one of the rods for the battery clamp dropped into the engine bay. Luckily a strong magnet persuaded it to rejoin the party. Finally, as a precaution, I’ve added a CTEK comfort charger cable with LED indicators so I can top up as necessary.
One final question:
The battery had a warning label to remove the seals. I’ve seen pics showing what look like little red plastic plugs on each side. On mine, there was just the vendors branded packing tape covering where these plugs or vents might be. Does this sound about right or should I be looking elsewhere ?
I have the Yuasa battery fitted, infact I had one fitted on my daily driver late last year too. Both are sealed batteries, I didn’t notice any plugs/seals on them.
Lidl smart chargers back in stock from Feb 17th, £13.99. Seem to have changed to a lcd voltage readout since i bought mine a few years back. Will get one as a back up, currently have the AA smart charger as as Lidl one stopped working.
My car will be laid up for 5 weeks and I can’t plug in a Ctek charger so it’ll have to fend for itself.
It’s got a brand new fully charged battery fitted so what’s the consensus as to whether it’ll stay the course with damage ? I can lock it with the key so the alarm isn’t activated and can plug it into a CTek when it’s needed again.
The alternative is to leave the battery disconnected but, although I didn’t have problems after the battery swap, I don’t want to chance the idling issues that sometimes arise.
Input gratefully accepted (as long as it doesn’t ask why I can’t use a Ctek).
Having read the thread I assume you have no power in the garage (if you are leaving it in a secure garage?) I would either disconnect the battery or leave the car unlocked whilst you are away.
Stick the Ctek on when you return or you reconnect the battery, top the battery up before you go away.
If you manually lock the car and have a fully charged battery I think that you should be ok. After 5 weeks the battery will have minmal charge but probably still enough to retain ECU memory. I would make sure boot light and interior lights are turned off so there is no drain when you open the door on your return. Then recharge the battery before trying to start the car.
Mine has gone 4 weeks this winter and retained ECU memory ok but just not enough juice left to start the car.
That‘s useful to know. I’m hoping that a new battery and slightly higher temperatures at the time of year I’m away will be enough to get me over the line. I’ll make sure the interior lights are off and will disable the alarm I’m sure there’s still a moderate draw for the clock and ECU but it’ll be much less than normal
Unfortunately, the garage can’t accommodate the MX5 while I’m away and I can’t take the chance that the RCD will trip if anything happens to the Ctek running on an extension (long story but trust me, if I could I would).
This might be a silly question but I’ll ask it anyway.
When I changed the battery, I had to run through the procedure to reset the DSC but my tickover was fine. Do you think it’s reasonable to assume that will be the case if I disconnect the battery for a longer period of time ? Or not ?
When I changed my battery the tickover became erratic and it took a 30 mins run to relearn and tickover smooth out. However when the battery went flat on the car due to not using and I recharged it on the car I had to reset the DSC but ECU did not lose its memory.
So I think that you were lucky when you changed the battery in that the ECU retained its memory. However if the battery is removed for any length of time then you will have the uneven tickover and have to go through the releasing process.
Paul
Thanks Paul.
I thought I’d just provide an update to close this off.
I left the car for almost 6 weeks having made sure the battery was fully charged, having done a decent run out a couple of days before I left. I switched off all the internal lights and locked the car using the remote, then turned off the internal sensor. When I got back home yesterday, the CTEK indicator was flashing Red which was ominous. I’d been hoping for Yellow but I guess there had been a cold snap over the last week or so.
Anyway, the engine span over and fired immediately. Better than before I changed the battery over winter, so I reckon a good battery in decent ambient temperature would do 7-8 weeks without too much difficulty.
Obviously, I then had to find many excuses to drive roof down to fetch cat, drive to Post Office, get petrol etc.
Next milestone is the service and MOT on Thursday.
if the ctek was flashing red, i suspect a dodgy connection meaning the battery is not being conditioned.
unless the battery was really dead…have you checked the electrolyte levels?
It was the Ctek indicator (they may call it the comfort indicator) which is a traffic light LED on the eyelet lead permanently connected to the battery. The CTEK chargerplugs into the lead, although in my case the car is outside and that’s why I couldn’t leave it plugged in - more valuable cars in the garage.
A quickesh 1 hour run and it’s back to Green, although I may swap things over to leave it on a conditioning charge in the garage after the service and MOT tomorrow.
so the red light was warning you the battery was low and needed a recharge / conditioning?
I’m not convinced the CTEK Comfort Indicators are much help. According to information I had from CTEK the colours are as follows:
Green > 12.75V
Amber between 12.4V and 12.75V
Red < 12.4V
At 12.4V the battery still has a significant proportion of its charge. Almost every time I unlock my XK8 and open the boot the indicator shows red, even though the battery is fine. I do wonder if the act of unlocking the car and waking everything up drops the battery voltage enough to go red. I ignore the colours now and don’t have any problems with starting etc. on either the XK8 (which is very sensitive to battery problems) or the MX5.