Hopefully someone can assist here... I had a problem on my wife's Fabia, where the 12v warning was appearing on the dashboard.

She recently started a new job that isn't very far away, so obviously the battery isn't getting a sufficient charge.

To that end, I purchased a CTEK MXS 5.0 charger so I can plug it in over the weekends.

When I connected the charger I discovered that the battery in the car is an EFB battery.

My question is, do I charge on the AGM charge setting or the normal charge?

I'm unable to find a definitive answer online.

Many thanks.

I'd be inclined to use the normal setting, I've never charged an EFB, not needed to do that yet as that car gets used "well" enough, my car has an AGM battery and for roughly all its life in my hands, 5.5 years, I've connected it to my CTEK MXS 5.0 - the one I have does not have an AGM setting but that battery is still in exceedingly good health according to my CTEK battery tester.

i'm sure EFB batteries are charged same way as AGM

I have read both, unfortunately no definitive answer. I have emailed CTEK, but that's not going to help this weekend unfortunately.

I know they make a model specifically for EFB batteries, but like you have said it may be possible on AGM mode.

Stick it on the normal setting.  As far as I've read, you don't need a higher voltage to fully charge an EFB or AGM battery, it's just that you can use a higher voltage to charge them faster without them going pop, subject to the temperature not being/getting too high.

So stick it on the normal setting and leave it for a generous time.

Maybe off topic or irrelevent but my last Fabia had a campaign carried out on it in March which was battery related and I seem to think it was related to the battery losing charge.

I think that some early cars using this platform had issues with the battery charging monitor module that is connected to the -VE terminal and maybe the charge control program, which lead to them not always being charged as well as they could have been.  My wife's August 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS has never ever had any issues with charging, in fact about a week ago, in cool/cold weather, she reversed it out of the garage after it had been unused the previous day, and as the lights and cabin fan etc were off, it auto stopped when she stopped at the top of the driveway to change direction and put her seatbelt on - so some cars are being kept/keeping well enough charged!

Edited 1 December, 20187 yr by rum4mo

My car, which is used mainly for short journeys, had that notice coming up all last winter.  It always started OK.  After driving 20 miles to the dealer the battery checked out OK and no fault was found with the sensors.  Drove the 20 miles home and the warning reappeared 2 days later!  If I do a long journey the warning won't come up for the best part of a week.

 

It's doing it again this winter.  I've bought a jump starter just in case, but it's starting OK so far.

 

@RickW: Can you remember the campaign details?

Treat as AGMTreat it as AGM, i found that out on the VARTA website in a previous post 

Click the arrow top right

 

 

 

have used the same charger on AGM setting and the car is fine, it even managed to stop/start afterwards. Be careful to NOT connect directly to battery negative terminal and always connect to positive first only plugging charger in once both connections have been made. Not trying to teach you to suck eggs but helping keep your battery safe.

1 hour ago, Flopsy said:

have used the same charger on AGM setting and the car is fine, it even managed to stop/start afterwards. Be careful to NOT connect directly to battery negative terminal and always connect to positive first only plugging charger in once both connections have been made. Not trying to teach you to suck eggs but helping keep your battery safe.

I have hard wired it with the comfort plug. Fortunately I wired it to the chassis ground point as it was easier. I found out later it's the official place to connect!

I will use the AGM mode then. I think I might even try the refresh mode.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

The correct setting to charge an EFB battery is normal. EFB batteries operate at he same voltage levels as conventional flooded batteries but just have higher rates of charge acceptance and more tolerance to deep discharges 

 

AGM setting uses elevated voltage settings that are required to fully charge an AGM battery, this setting will overcharge and cook/gas your EFB battery which ultimately will lead to a shorter life.

 

Edited 2 December, 20187 yr by xman

xman:- i hear what you are saying but Varta appear to disagree in Item 5 of the following article.

https://batteryworld.varta-automotive.com/en-be/charge-car-battery

 

Edited 2 December, 20187 yr by Flopsy

8 hours ago, ffox said:

My car, which is used mainly for short journeys, had that notice coming up all last winter.  It always started OK.  After driving 20 miles to the dealer the battery checked out OK and no fault was found with the sensors.  Drove the 20 miles home and the warning reappeared 2 days later!  If I do a long journey the warning won't come up for the best part of a week.

 

It's doing it again this winter.  I've bought a jump starter just in case, but it's starting OK so far.

 

@RickW: Can you remember the campaign details?

Hi ffox,the campaign code number was 97CU.

My Fabia was built in January 2016 and was a 1.2 dsg.

Thank you!

Just now, ffox said:

Thank you!

Further to that from erWin

"Technical background

For Škoda vehicles of a certain production period the energy management of the vehicle battery has been optimised.

Remedy

On the affected vehicles the onboard supply control unit must be reprogrammed (see criterions)."

On 01/12/2018 at 16:13, rum4mo said:

I'd be inclined to use the normal setting, I've never charged an EFB, not needed to do that yet as that car gets used "well" enough, my car has an AGM battery and for roughly all its life in my hands, 5.5 years, I've connected it to my CTEK MXS 5.0 - the one I have does not have an AGM setting but that battery is still in exceedingly good health according to my CTEK battery tester.

 

I have the big brother to your Ctek (7 amp IIRC) which also no AGM setting but it does have a low temperature setting which does the same thing, just increases the voltage a little bit. It even says in the manual to do this so if yours has the little snowflake symbol you can always use that mode if you ever have the desire to make sure your AGM is charged to 100%.

11 hours ago, SuperbTWM said:

 

I have the big brother to your Ctek (7 amp IIRC) which also no AGM setting but it does have a low temperature setting which does the same thing, just increases the voltage a little bit. It even says in the manual to do this so if yours has the little snowflake symbol you can always use that mode if you ever have the desire to make sure your AGM is charged to 100%.

 

Yes I noticed that when I finally got round to checking the manual I had downloaded from the CTEK website round about the time I bought that Test and Charge unit, yesterday.

I'll give that option a miss for now as what I am doing is essentially providing that battery, fitted to a relatively unused car, with life saving maintenance.

On 02/12/2018 at 11:48, xman said:

The correct setting to charge an EFB battery is normal. EFB batteries operate at he same voltage levels as conventional flooded batteries but just have higher rates of charge acceptance and more tolerance to deep discharges 

 

AGM setting uses elevated voltage settings that are required to fully charge an AGM battery, this setting will overcharge and cook/gas your EFB battery which ultimately will lead to a shorter life.

 

Ok I best stick to normal 

I got a definitive answer from CTEK today, they have confirmed that the charger is compatible and should be used on Normal mode Not AGM.