MXS 5.0

I bought the CTEK MXS 5.0 to maintain the battery on a car that isn’t used daily, and so far it has been very reliable and straightforward to use. The charger is compact, well built and clearly designed for long-term battery care rather than just quick charging. The connection process is simple, with clear indicators showing each charging stage. It’s ideal if you want to keep a battery healthy over time, especially for vehicles that are parked for long periods. If only the cables were longer it would have been perfect. Overall, a well-designed charger. Not the cheapest option, but the quality and smart features make it worth it if you want to look after your battery properly.

I bought this charger as I have a camper van that spends several months a year off-road in the driveway, during the down season and I have both the van and leisure batteries to keep maintained. I had used a simpler trickle charger but The CTEK is specifically designed to restore and maintain batteries and displays exactly what it is doing in the charge cycle. It has done a great job of keeping those batteries maintained over the Winter and I also use it to top up the leisure battery before any trips away, especially where I am off-grid, as the inbuilt charger unit in the van cannot charge to the same high value. I had the battery in my car replaced last Summer and I was curious as to why the stop-start system was not working, similarly to before when the old battery was failing. I measured the voltage and it was low, so I used the CTEK to boost it up to full charge. The battery had clearly been stored at a lower voltage and never fully recovered until boosted this way. The battery has since been healthy and stop-start works perfectly. On the leisure battery I permanently wired up a CTEK cable to the terminals so I can just plug it directly to the charger while the battery is boxed up. I also got the 12v plug-in charger cable for directly plugging into the 12v auxiliary sockets in both the van and car. This charges the battery through any permanently live 12v socket, which is very convenient and saves raising the bonnet and using crocodile clips. Note that this only works on sockets that are always live and not those that only go live when the ignition is switched on. My experience is that this is a great charger for battery restoration, maintenance and boosting depleted batteries caused by short journeys or heavy use in winter.

Have been doing less mileage in the car and consequently, as with most modern cars, the 12v battery has been suffering. Looked at the car's manufacturer’s charger, which is actually made by CTEK, and it was considerably more expensive. Decided to buy this one and it works perfectly with my car. If I now need to charge up the battery it is a simple matter of connecting two clamps and plug into the power. Simple, quality, compact charger which does the job with ease.

I've tried simpler 'smart' chargers that would often be connected to a flat battery and refuse to do anything - voltage too low. This CTEK one was purchased because I swap between two cars - one for summer, one for winter, cheaper than running both at once - and the inactive car's battery often needs some assistance when switching over. The 'recondition mode' has already brought 2 batteries back to useful capacity despite being below 10v. I've just given it its biggest challenge - a good-quality Bosch battery that was registering less than 6 volts due to constant drain. The MXS5.0 didn't give up, and after a 12-hour charge, reported it as green. Sure enough, it's holding a steady voltage. Whether the battery will actually start the car after being so badly drained remains to be seen, but I'm very impressed that the charger managed to bring it back to 12 volts. It's paid for itself already, being cheaper than a battery for either of my cars and has saved me replacing both. It's worth noting that both cars have good-quality batteries fitted that are also worth the extra money over cheaper ones, as they can take quite some abuse and be brought back. Its ability to restore a cheaper battery may vary due to the more rugged design used in high-end batteries. The user interface is very simple, just push the Mode button until the LEDs point to the combination you want (motorcycle or car capacity, Absorbent Glass Mat technology, Recondition mode) and let it do its thing. If it's unplugged, it'll resume the same settings on next connection. I think the 5.0 is worth the extra over the 3.8 as it charges faster. The cables, clips and connectors are all good quality, and I bought an extension lead for the 12v end so I can leave the battery in a well-vented area while keeping the expensive charger under cover. The included bag is big enough to fit the charger, manual and extra extension lead in one neat package. When the battery finishes charging, the charger automatically drops to a maintenance mode, monitoring the battery voltage, and will start charging again if the voltage begins to drop. This keeps lead-acid batteries in good condition - the chemistry works well with a small, but constant, amount of power flowing through the cells. In short, this is a brilliant charger to keep handy if you have a car that is seldom used. It may save you replacing the battery many times over. An edit: This charger is still working perfectly in 2025 and has never let me down. It's just resurrected a pair of batteries that were standing for many months and were reading less than 3V total. It took a boost from a solar panel to 'kick start' the charge cycle by bringing the voltage up, but once they were reading 10V, a lengthy charge and recondition cycle followed which has restored both batteries to >90% State of Health according to a battery tester. I've done similar for other batteries, bringing them back from extremely low voltages and coaxing additional life out of them, enough to start the engine and get going. It's not perfect and there will be some capacity loss, but this charger has paid for itself many times over in not needing to replace dead batteries so often. I've lent it to colleagues to run cycles on their cars. The cables are wearing well and the Comfort Connect clips are still holding strong. I also realised that the charger body is IP65-rated waterproof, so can be left outside in the rain safely while charging. This has much simplified charging my cars. Overall, this is exceptional quality and value for money. It has paid for itself many times over in replacement car batteries! I've never had to talk to CTEK support as I've never had a problem with my unit, it's been entirely reliable and dependable. Thoroughly recommended.

The provided leads to attach to battery clamp posts are nice however they are clad in a very thick rubber which makes fitting the positive and utilising a positive terminal cover cap difficult, I had to use a punch and hammer to bend the post around my clamp so i could secure the terminal cover in my 2012 kia ceed 1.6 crdi. It would be nice if this was fedback to the manufacturers so they could make a better design for a future revision of the charger that slims down the positive for use with terminal cover caps, the fix in place and use as you need it charging cable lead i've just talked about has a removable seal cap which is a nice touch however I discovered the cable length is rather short and for a 270mm wide by 170mm deep battery positioning and trying to secure the very short connector in a suitable place was a pain as I wanted to keep it secured in a little pocket near the front of the engine bay where water will not be able to get to it but due to having to route the cable behind the battery it's too short to reach this location, I could modify the cable to add some length but I don't quite fancy doing that just yet before using the charger so I have purchased the 2.5mm extension and for now just tucked the connector away between my ECU connectors and my airbox which seems like relatively ok position. The charger is very small and the dimensions on this page are not true, it's 17cm long by 7cm deep so it's really quite small which is nice if you're going to charge the battery in place and close the hood of your car and run an extension to it for charging on your property. I bought it in a panic after needing to charge my undervolted battery a few days ago that died on me when trying to leave work, I used a family members charger before this even arrived and once my weatherproof outdoor connection box arrives i'll edit my review of this charger and the 2.5m extension connector with results to see how well it can maintain my battery. It's a very expensive charger, I bought it thinking I had an AGM battery but i do not i have a sealed maintenance free flooded lead acid battery that I most likely will replace in a few months with an upgraded capacity and CCA AGM battery if my monitoring of the voltage over winter gets concerning. For the size and utility provided with the carry bag, the fix in place clamp connectors, and the crocodile clamps i'm relatively happy with my purchase. If you're going to fit the fix in place clamp connectors do consider using some liqui moly battery terminal grease and some grime wipes to not only clean the posts and clamps but also to securely isolate the connection from the outside world to protect it from corrosion and possible shorting.

I have a Renault Trafic 2 litre diesel van, and as I am now retired from work it mainly only gets used for short local trips or for longer journeys in the summer towing my small caravan. Consequently it spends long periods in the winter just sitting on the drive unless I take it out for a short run which just wastes diesel. The battery is located under the floor on the passenger side of the cab, and is a huge two-handled 95 amps per hour monster. It isn't ever so convenient to have to keep removing it in order to charge it up, but I had noticed that it was regularly taking more and more turns of the starter motor to fire the engine up. I had a battery isolation switch fitted to my previous van so that I could hook my normal battery charger up periodically without having to remove, or even disconnect the battery, but my local garage said they wouldn't advise doing that with the Renault as it is more sophisticated and has so much equipment which requires a background electrical supply, such as the immobiliser, alarm, and electronic control unit. I was looking on the Automobile Association website about how to care for batteries, when I noticed the link to the CTEK website. When I read their description of the product I thought that it sounded just what I needed, although I was a bit dubious about their claim that you can just leave everything connected whilst it is on charge. However, it works just as they said. It's a very compact little unit, and the most difficult thing for me was getting a mains electric power supply into the cab. I did this by rigging up a special extension lead which has a small 3-pin push-fit connector on the end (just make sure you fit the female end to the mains supply half of the cable, which in my case plugs into an exterior socket that I have on the side of the house in order to keep the caravan permanently plugged in). I then pass the other half of this cable down from inside the cab, through a small gap in the battery box, and I then retrieve this cable (the male connector) from underneath the van with a stick with a small hook on the end. I pull this out to underneath the front of the van, connect the two halves of the cable with the small push-fit 10 amp connector, and then pull the whole lot back up from inside the van so that the connector is not lying on the ground. The other end of the extension cable which is inside the van has a normal 3-pin trailing socket on the end, which the charger plugs into. There is sufficient length of cable for this to sit on the top of the dashboard so that I can monitor the progress of the charge by viewing it through the windscreen. I have used the connectors with the rings on the end, which I have bolted to the nuts on the battery terminals so that it is sort of a permanent fixture. All I have to do is plug the connector from the charger into the other end of this lead, which just hangs down at the side of the battery when not in use, although I do obviously have to remove everything (including the mains extension cable) each time I use the van. You can of course use the crocodile clips which also come with it, and yes, it works perfectly. I just connect it up now and leave it for however long it is until I next need to use the van. All the vehicle's own electrics seem to be unaffected by it and so far nothing has malfunctioned. I can even lock and unlock the van using the remote central locking key-fob arrangement. It doesn't affect the charging cycle, which is easy to follow by looking at the line of coloured lights on the charger. In addition to keeping the battery at full charge, this charger also analyzes the state of your battery, and there is a program option called "Recond" which is supposed to recondition an ailing battery. As my van is 5 years old with the original battery, then I know that this is supposed to be the approximate extent of a vehicle battery's life. Therefore I also bought a new battery at the same time, which is something that might warrant consideration. This charger is very good but it won't work miracles and it's probably asking too much to expect it to keep a heavily sulphated battery in really tip-top condition. So far I've had the van connected up and just sitting on the drive for about a month since just before Christmas, and then I disconnected it all and am currently trying to get a few errands done before I connect it all up again for about another month which should take me into March. My problem is going to be when I need to put more diesel in the van as I will have forgotten how to do it.

Good value and top performer on Porsche Macan S and GTS models.

The CTEK MXS 5.0 is a game-changer for my Porsche 911 991.2 Cabriolet, offering professional-level battery care that goes far beyond a standard charger. My Setup: I've implemented a clever charging solution by connecting the charger to an external outdoor socket, with the unit itself stored conveniently in the boot. Instead of directly connecting to the battery, I'm using the car's dedicated charging points, which makes the entire process incredibly clean and convenient. When I'm ready to drive, I simply unplug the charger and tuck it away in the boot - no fuss, no mess. Technical Highlights (from manual): 8-step fully automatic charging cycle Compatible with 12V lead-acid batteries (WET, MF, Ca/Ca, AGM, GEL) Battery capacity range: 1.2–110Ah (up to 160Ah for maintenance) Temperature range: -20°C to +50°C with built-in temperature compensation What impresses me most is the charger's intelligent charging process: STEP 1: Desulphation - removes sulfate from lead plates STEP 2: Soft Start - tests battery's ability to accept charge STEP 3: Bulk Charging - brings battery to 80% capacity STEP 4: Absorption - maximizes to 100% capacity STEP 5: Battery Analysis - checks charge retention Optional RECOND step - revitalizes battery annually Practical Features: Reverse polarity protection IP65 insulation rating Compact size (168 x 65 x 38mm) Lightweight at just 0.6kg For my stop-start Porsche, this charger ensures optimal battery health, preventing the common issues with modern automotive electrical systems. Pro Tip: The charger automatically reduces output at high temperatures and has extremely low back current drain (<1Ah/month). Perfect for precision German engineering! Pros: Advanced 8-step charging Temperature adaptive Comprehensive battery protection Ideal for modern vehicles Flexible installation options Cons: Premium pricing An investment in your vehicle's long-term performance!

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Gutes Ladegerät. Würde ich wieder nehmen. Zur Zeit ist der VW Bus gerade angeschlossen

One of the best

works fine no issues

I have two already and purchased this for a son of mine, it can be connected all the time so try hout damaging the battery.