Ford B-Max Forum banner

Battery doesn't fully charge

3K views 1 reply 2 participants last post by  rustbucket 
#1 ·
Hi guys!

Tha battery of my bmax is never fully charged even after some hours of motorway driving it never reaches full charge.
I've noticed it since in a couple of weeks I'm going camping and I've got a WAECO CF-40 fridge
which is a good fridge with compressor (40l of capacity though) and not one of those cheap peltier fridges. This one I'm talking about is an A+ class fridge working perfectly.

If I plug in to the battery the CTEK charger (good electronic charger not cheap one) it always charges the battery for some hours. After the charge with CTEK the fridge, which has a built in cut off at a selectable voltage (I've set it to 11,8V), can run as long as 2/3 days without charging the battery nor starting the car. After 3 days the engine strarts nicely even if the battery has been quite deeply discharged to 11,8V.

If I plug in the fridge as soon as I turned ignition off without having recharged the battery but having driven it for many miles, the fridges would only run for 10-12 hours and than shut off since voltage has reached cut off tension at 11,8V

I've noticed than one hour after having recharged battery with the CTEK charger voltage stabilizes around 13,2V while one hour after turning the ignition off, without recharging with the CTEK the battery, the voltage stabilizes between 12,5V and 12,7V.

Now I don't know if this can be considered a mistake from Ford or a strange ECOfriendly idea not to loose energy charging up the battery, however for me it's a problem which my old Fiat Multipla running on CNG which has not as much electronics doesn't have since it charges up completely it's small 55A battery (which at the end lasts longer btw...
)

I think the problem is about the intelligent charging system which is intelligent only according to Ford which is very happy to sell you a brand new battery every winter for something like 150‚¬


Now the question is... Is there a way to set the intelligent sistem to stupid mode and force it to always give maximum power?!?

For who's asking how can I plug in a fridge with ignition off, I've fitted in a 12V cigar plug in the boot which is directly connected to the battery with a 15A fuse and 4mm2 wires so that there's no voltage drop since maximum fridge absorption (when compressor starts, first seconds) is 6A...

Thank you guys!!



Edited by: Pilitio
 
See less See more
3
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top