Monthly Archives: April 2012

Remember to add battery charging to your holiday checklist

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We estimate that as many as 1 in 10 of all flat batteries will be experienced by people returning from their holiday, so don’t forget to add battery charging to your list of holiday essentials such as vaccinations, travel insurance and sun tan lotion as you start planning for your summer break.

After a long journey home, queues to get through passport control, battles with heavy luggage and a cold wait for the car park bus, you could be faced with a further delay in getting home – a flat battery. Focussing purely on getting home as quickly as possible you will be left with no option but to place your car at risk of damage by choosing the only quick option – a jump start.

When a vehicle is jump-started a huge surge of voltage and current is generated that passes through the battery to energise the starter motor. This can potentially get through to the Electronic Control Unit (ECU) and cause irreparable damage. The high power demands of modern vehicles and the drain from parasitic loads such tracking devices and alarms means that a battery can potentially become flat in a matter of days.

To protect against a flat battery when leaving your car standing over the holiday period we recommend an overnight charge the weekend before you go away to bring the battery up to maximum capacity.  This will extend your battery life by as much as 300% and prevent the risk of jump starting your vehicle when arriving back from your holiday.

Including a battery charge in routine maintenance on cars and can prevent unnecessary and dangerous jump starts whilst also improving efficiency of vehicles.

CTEK Equals Quality & Reliability

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We mentioned a couple of weeks back that we had undertaken a survey to identify consumer awareness and attitudes to battery charging. As well as measuring these important points, our survey also focused on consumer awareness and experience of the CTEK range of Smart chargers.

78% of those surveyed owned a battery charger and in 51% of cases it was a CTEK charger.  The figure that we are really proud of however is that 92% of those surveyed associated the words quality and reliability with the CTEK brand, which we feel is testament to the unique multi-stage charging characteristics incorporated across our entire range of smart chargers.

The new generation of CTEK Smart battery chargers take a safe, simple, intelligent approach to comprehensive battery maintenance that is fast, effective, easy to use and most importantly won’t let you down.

Our chargers offer a unique multi step-approach to battery care, that are simple to use and will ensure that any lead-acid battery is optimally conditioned and charged.

Can you improve your green credentials?

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Over the past few years we have seen new regulations come into force, requiring retailers selling batteries to provide collection and recycling facilities for the eventual disposal of the 800,000 tonnes of automotive batteries placed on the EU market every year.

This ruling however won’t have a great deal of impact on the environment – the automotive battery is already considered by some to be one of the most recycled products in the world.

The increased care and maintenance of automotive batteries however would dramatically reduce battery failures, in turn cutting down carbon emissions and ultimately the needless replacement of thousands of tonnes of automotive batteries every year.

It is heartening to learn that in America as an example, as many as 99% of batteries are turned in for recycling. It is also good to understand that the majority of the battery components can be reused – the lead in a 12-Volt battery can be recycled, the electrolyte repurposed and the plastic ground up and reused. Whilst this activity significantly reduces environmental impact in terms of landfill pollution there is still the requirement for the battery to be transported numerous times from initial consumer disposal, to recycling plants and subsequent distribution of the separated battery parts. Recycling 800,000 tonnes of battery isn’t quite as good for the environment as it first seems; think of the effect on our carbon footprint.

Our research indicates that whilst as many as 1 in 3 batteries are not working to full capacity, they are not defective. A regular battery charge as part of a maintenance routine could easily double a battery’s service life, significantly reducing the number of battery failures and therefore the number of batteries being produced and recycled.

Let’s not also forget the financial impact on the consumer; by regularly using a battery charger, such as the CTEK MXS 5.0, to protect and maintain batteries, motorists can keep their batteries healthy and avoid expensive replacement costs of new batteries.

Undertaking regular battery charging and conditioning can increase your green credentials, save you time and money whilst also ensuring that your vehicle starts first time, every time.