I just bought a Land Rover Ctek battery tender. Where do you connect it? Thanks!

 

I don't own a new Defender yet but pretty sure there are two terminals (black and red) located on the PS of the engine bay once you pop the hood. You can connect it there. The actual battery is under the seat I think but no need to directly connect to it. The terminals in the engine bay are for this reason and serve the same purpose.

 

It has the cig lighter connector like you would connect to a corvette or McLaren. Do they have those? The only one I found is the 12V in the rear.

 

This video answers your question................... Enjoy!!

p.s. do not connect to the ground terminal of the actual battery, under the seat, as this may result in damage to electronic modules connected directly to the battery (or so says the very interesting document sent out recently from a D5 owner ...)

 

I got this battery tender however?

 

I have an F-Type R (park it for a month or two) and wired in a CTEK. You can get them on Amazon. LR, Benz, Porsche all use them as their OEM and re-label and charge 3-4x the price. They recondition and simply... work! Don’t over analyze it!

Go to Amazon, get a CTEK. Wire in the Pig tails to the BMS (Battery Management System) and don’t look back.

If you are driving once or twice every week or two, likely no need for a tender, waste of money!

That pic above is a CTEK, by the way: CTEK - 40-206 MXS 5.0 Fully Automatic 4.3 amp Battery Charger and Maintainer 12V (40-206) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00CD44RQO/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glc_fabc_Kfv-Fb3TJ81R1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1

just my .02!

 

Yes I have the oem for my McLaren 720s, C8 as well but pick the oem brand for the D2 because it is mild hybrid with lithium battery? It didn't come with pig tail connectors like battery tender I have for pilot and L320.

 

You have several options - depends how handy you are and how you want to use it. I personally would NOT plug any battery charger into the power outlet of any modern car/truck. Other people do it but I wouldn't as I've had too many issues tracing electrical gremlins and don't want to do anything to cause those issues to multiply.

1] Modify what you have - cut off the cigarette light socket and splice some aligator clips onto the leads. Pretty simple to do - use something like this -
2] Use what you have and wire in an adaptor - pseudo-permanently connect a lead to the under-hood battery terminals so you can just open the hood and plug in your charger when needed - something like this -
3] Use what you have and temporary use of adaptor - just connect this to your under-hood battery terminals when needed and plug in your charger - something like this -
If you plan to put it on the charger more often than not I would consider something more permanent than just alligator clips but not needed. My Maserati had to be charged all the time so I used something more like option 2 and had the cord in the trunk so I could just pop the lid and plug in the charge.

 

older FFRR says not to use cig lighter as 12V charger. current models don't have that warning anymore?


https://www.ownerinfo.landrover.com/...t/38261_en_GBR

 

From what I read the adapter is needed so that you can be assured of a hot lead to plug into versus the 12 volt socket which could be off when the vehicle is turned off or if not would be included in any load shedding the system does if it sees battery drain. The battery management system is quite sophisticated even at night in the garage. I opted for a CTEK MX5 and just use the clips on the charge posts under the hood. Don’t think I need it all the time maybe just periodically.

Interestingly, the shop manual does state that “periodically” the battery management system resets itself when the battery is fully charged. I assume this means it recalibrates what is fully charged. It also states that if your battery is discharged it could take days of driving short distances to top it off. Lots of other info as well but those two comments caught my eye. I can do days of very short town trips and as such I think I will not let the auto start stop system run for those. I had been letting it run with no ill effect by the way.

I think maybe the bottom line is periodically a good charging to bring it up fully especially if it had been sitting is a decent habit.