Review: CTEK MXS 5.0 Battery Charger

Battery chargers may not be the sexiest automotive products, but they play an ever more important role in home garages – especially if you have a vehicle that isn’t driven every day.

CTEK is a leader in the field. Popular with both automotive and caravan enthusiasts, its product range includes everything from simple chargers to higher-feature models suited to a wide range of applications.

The CTEK MXS 5.0 Battery Charger is the hero product of the CTEK range.

Priced at $149.00, the CTEK MXS 5.0 Battery Charger arrives as a neat package. Your money buys you the charger, two types of connectors (known as Comfort Connect for reasons that will soon become apparent), a manual and a handy little tie-bag in which to store everything.

carsales tested the MXS on a 12V AGM battery. We nicked it from a mobility scooter, but it’s just like the batteries found in off-road 4x4 vehicles and caravans. The MXS 5.0 will suit any regular 12V car battery, or even a smaller motorcycle, snowmobile or jetski battery.

The Comfort Connectors come in two forms: a standard clamp style, which are effectively a smaller set of normal jumper leads; or a set of eyelet connectors that can be screwed permanently onto the battery terminals.

This is where the ‘Comfort’ comes in. These eyelet connectors create an easily accessed remote recharging point

Using the charger is therefore a matter of simply connecting the device via the Comfort Connector, switching it on and then pressing the mode button to select one of the eight charging programs.

There are four programs for small batteries and four for large ones.

Each battery size has a normal and AGM program, and each of these also has a recondition option.

As the charger’s onboard program plays out, it will indicate each process with a small light illuminating each step.

carsales spoke to Robert Briggs, CTEK’s Asia Pacific director of sales and marketing, about how to make the best use of the MXS unit and in general about our electrical future.

“In our lifetime, the lead-acid battery will remain the most common battery because of its cost efficiency and reliability,” says Briggs.

“In 1996 CTEK was the first to develop a reliable charger that doesn’t overcharge the battery like others on the market that simply forced charge into and ‘gassed’ the battery,” Briggs continued.

“CTEK came up with what is known today as eight steps of charge, managing the battery and charging in a proper way.”

The eight steps in the MXS include a desulphation step as well as constant analysis of the battery to ensure the best outcome for lengthening the life of this key element of the vehicle.

“If you put a CTEK battery charger on your car, once a month for eight hours, overnight, it will double the life of the battery,” Briggs claimed.

Briggs says battery condition is particularly important for vehicles using idle-stop technology (where a car will stop the engine when stationary).

According to Briggs this puts added burden on the battery, reducing its life. According to CTEK the global average life of a battery used in vehicles equipped with idle-stop tech is around 18 months

The CTEK charger we tested also has a RECOND (recondition) function. It is recommended this be used once a year.

“It puts the voltage to 15.8V to ‘wake the battery up’. It sends high voltage pulses onto the plates [and] if there is anything on the plates, it cleans them because the voltage so high. It shocks and crystals or anything growing on the plate,” explained Briggs.

CTEK chargers are, however, smart enough to RECOND if not needed.

“Ferrari, Aston Martin, Lamborghini have our chargers with their name on it,” says Briggs.

“They know their customers don’t daily drive their cars. They can sit there for six months before being driven. That’s why they have products that not only charge, but maintain the state of the battery.”

CTEK sells around 650,000 MXS chargers globally each year.