To charge or not to charge

[Private_Kelly]

I have just bought. T6.1 Coast and on reading the Owners Manual it advises that the Starter battery should only be charged by VW Technicians at the dealership. Is this correct. I have a CTEK smart charger and was going to plug it in and top up my starter battery due to the cold. Now I’m thinking should I or shouldn’t I. It’s only a battery. Why send it to the garage ???

 

[andyinluton]

The starter battery shouldn't need charging, a new van / battery should last for weeks if not months without going flat. If you do want to top it up, use the habitation battery charger, once those batteries are full it will start topping up the starter battery as well.

 

[Wildcamper]

I have just bought. T6.1 Coast and on reading the Owners Manual it advises that the Starter battery should only be charged by VW Technicians at the dealership. Is this correct. I have a CTEK smart charger and was going to plug it in and top up my starter battery due to the cold. Now I’m thinking should I or shouldn’t I. It’s only a battery. Why send it to the garage ???

When our van is parked at home it is plugged in so that the leisure and starter battery are always on charge via smart chargers. The plug in cable has a spur taking power to a smart charger, sited in the battery bay, permanently connected up to the engine battery. Lead acid batteries like being fully charge and in my experience they last a lot longer. Hence I have no worries about any of my batteries discharging winter or summer.

 

[Private_Kelly]

The starter battery shouldn't need charging, a new van / battery should last for weeks if not months without going flat. If you do want to top it up, use the habitation battery charger, once those batteries are full it will start topping up the starter battery as well.

Quite correct Andy. But I’m a bit mystified that “if” it was a bit flat and could do with a bit of juice then according to the manual us Cali owners are too stupid to charge them ourselves and we should only rely on our dependable and reassuringly expensive VW techs.

 

[andyinluton]

Driving it to the dealer to charge it would top it up anyway.

Just use the built in charger.

 

[Hamish S]

Purchased a Ctek not long ago; it's currently at my mothers topping up the battery on her Micra, due to an eye op she can't drive it again yet. Florence "the machine" on the other hand is at Swindon VW Van Centre as the starter battery has gone flat twice. On both occasions Florence had been on a 50 mile round trip and then left to stand for 4 days. Result flat starter battery but leisure batteries are OK. Now the best bit; according to Swindon Van centre my solar panel, purchased from Roger, which is connected to the leisure battery is draining the starter battery. On both occasions called out VW assist 1st time battery was reading 3.8 volts and the second time 3.5 volts. But according to Swindon Van Centre the battery is now all charged up and is fine, no problem, just disconnect your solar panel in the winter months. On both occasions VW assist connected a CTEK to the battery and I watched them connect it up to ensure they didn't use the battery's negative terminal which they didn't (connected the negative cable to the chassis). On the second occasion the VW guy suggested that if I'm not going to use Florence for long periods that I use a CTEK on the starter battery which does contradict the "to be used by VW only theory".

 

[Elmo3]

Just charge it with the CTEK, making sure negative is connected to an earth point and not the battery terminal. I did mine a few weeks ago after it had been stood for a while through the cold snap. Will probably do it again soon to keep it topped up. I did the car as well as it’s only doing a short journey once a week at the moment.

 

[Rams66]

I use an Optimate for cars and a motorbike specific one. I have only ever connected to the +ve and -ve terminals. For the California (not yet arrived) should I not connect to the negative battery terminal?

 

[Velma's Dad]

Cali owners seem to agonise about battery charging but I've never had any issues with either the starter or leisure batteries and my van (2015) is still on its first set of both. It just started without fuss after being left to sulk for several weeks.

If the battery won't hold a starting charge for that length of time then it's defective or there's a current drain somewhere.

(I'm not knocking the CTEK charger/conditioners BTW, I use a couple of them for other cars and they are brilliant. But for the Cali the mains hook up is the best thing if you really need to leave the van for a long period.)

 

[WelshGas]

I use an Optimate for cars and a motorbike specific one. I have only ever connected to the +ve and -ve terminals. For the California (not yet arrived) should I not connect to the negative battery terminal?

No. -tve should not be connected to the battery -tve pole. The modern vehicles with Stop/Start and Regenerative Braking plus smart alternators monitor the engine battery status and charging using the -tve battery connection circumvents this monitoring. Always connect the -tve cable from charger to a chassis earth point or equivalent.

 

[Rams66]

No. -tve should not be connected to the battery -tve pole. The modern vehicles with Stop/Start and Regenerative Braking plus smart alternators monitor the engine battery status and charging using the -tve battery connection circumvents this monitoring. Always connect the -tve cable from charger to a chassis earth point or equivalent.

Great thanks. I learn something new every time I come on to the forum!