CTEK MXS 5.0 Test & Charge

Could have caused a fire – Have a couple these and have been mostly fine. Over time they develop a coil whine which is disconcerting. One recently burnt up its connector and ruined an extension cable. It seems I was lucky as it could have caused a fire if something was too close to the connector. (Connector was absolutely fully seated and connected properly.) When sending… Read more

for warranty the process takes well over a month (in 2024 it feels outrageously too long). No simple verify photos and replace. The shop offered to refund or replace and I took the refund. Will avoid CTEK from now on as obviously they’re not as good at detecting an issue or protecting the car/your house as they claim. Unlike Bosch, they don’t have an inline replaceable fuse. Cheap Chinese junk.

Don’t waste your money – Like many have said, they just don’t last. I replaced one y der warranty. The replacement has just died 1 month past warranty. This is the third one that hasn’t lasted. Never again!

CTEK rubbish product & service – Bought $600+ CTEK charger, started out fine. Failed within 4 months - no replacement, no refund and no word in 4 months. I was forced to buy another under duress but won’t use this product ever again.

Don't last long – I have had three different ctek chargers, 5.0. 7.0 and 25. All have failed around three years. Very disappointed as these are incredibly expensive products. Looking for a more reliable alternative for maintaining spare new batteries in my workshop and running my motorhome leisure batteries.

No Australian Contact – Ctek are good chargers, support here in Australia is the issue. I have been unable to find any details of Ctek or it's distributor in Australia in particular a phone number and or address! All I need to know is where I can buy a wall mount for a MXS 10 charger, I can't even establish if they actually sell one. A business even with a good… Read more

product is only as good as their support and unless you email somewhere overseas and wait for a reply there is nil support in Australia.

Workshop stamp of approval! – We use these to keep thousands of new batteries topped up before selling to customers, we use 4 units and charge up to 20 batteries per week. All lasted 5 years so far. CTEK also make our larger wall units that supply power to high end vehicles when carrying out diagnostic work, extremely reliable brand

good when he works ...but how long ?? – CTEK is not a cheap charger in Belgium ...i think i have it 4-5 years ,i used the charger perhaps 5 times ...for the first time today i tried to charge a moto battery ,but it was not possible to switch with the mode button to indicator moto ,for lower charging !! the switch was not working .I find on the internet a lot of problems with the mode… Read more

switch . Ctek advice me to buy an other charger !!! I wrote a mail to CTEK and the knew the switch problem ,i ask CTEK to send me a new switch ( spare part ) so that i can replace the switch , but the switch is out of stock ,and the are using now an other switch in their chargers ...and the new switch doesn't fit on the electronic board inside the charger.!!this switches are from bad quality ! so I open the charger, the switch is closed ..but there is a minimum space between the axel button and the switch housing , i drop on the axel some drops contact cleaner C60 and pusch perhaps after every drop 30 times the switch so that the cleaner was going ( hope it ) inside the switch ...and yes it was working . so CTEC it is not fair to advice me to buy a new charger for a bad working switch , a verry poor switch that CTEK is using in their charger .When i have the problem again in the future , i tried to find on the internet , perhaps ebay or in a store who are selling electonic components a switch ,perhaps the same or a look a like that i can modifite it .

i think it is better to buy a charger in the action or Aldi .

Ctek mx5 failure – Had my mx5 for a while , used it religiously on the boat and my agm van battery , recently it failed with no leds on and no output , just died , always been a fan of ctek , have ds250se and 3 of the smaller mx trickle chargers on the boat and bikes , and to have this filed sort of left me wondering about the rest of them Think I’ll buy a cheaper one next time

Overprice and low quality – Bought one of these and left on my ducati with a brand new battery. Battery dead after about 2 years. The comfort plugs provided with the units fail in short order with poor connection. My unit has now failed and never passes stage 4 no matter which of my many batteries I use it on. I recommend bypassing this expensive and overrated brand.

Over rated, does not last. REGRET – I own several cars and four of these CTEK chargers. Initially, they worked well keeping charge or re charging a low battery. Several times over the 2-3 years it damaged my car batteries, I have had to replace three new batteries because it got burned. Now after a couple more years, all CTEK had stopped working, even pushing the reset button. No… Read more

light at all lighting on the unit. They are not reliable and they are expensive. My friend bought a cheapie from SuperCheap, and it lasted longer and still going strong. I regret buying four and will never own another CTEK. Never.

Chinese made – Had to send unit back to retailer immediately as mode button never worked. Same thing again with second one. Was blamed on bad batch. Third one worked as it should for about 6 months. Mode button now works intermittently. Test function doesnt work anymore.

short life span – I purchase this unit on advice from battery world and while it worked fine as soon as the warranty expired so did the unit. I also had a 25 amp Ctek charger which came with a smaller quick start unit fitted in my caravan which was bought new. Smaller one died fairly quickly while charging a motorcycle and the bigger unit lasted just over 2 years.… Read more

They say Swiss technology but they are made in china so obviously there is a quality control issue. Prices are that of a quality product but performance and reliability do not reflect this. No more Ctek for me.

Brought old sulphated batteries back from the dead – I have had several batteries revived on the farm and in personal vehicles by using the recon feature on CTEK chargers with the most successful being the MXS 5.0 unit. Mine is now over 5-6 Years old, friends borrow it I still use it, it has been left in the rain and I was when dried out getting the error light. Bought a new VOLTFLOW from my old… Read more

job, no where near as good. I removed the quick connect and it was rusted out, joined, soldered and heat shrinked the 12v side and that old ctek is still saving and maintaining batteries in my historic vehicles, I wish I could afford to buy 6 more to leave them set and forget.

Very bad customer service if your unit is faulty – My charger has stopped charging my batteries and the unit will turn off. I have contacted their customer service which is based in Sweden as they have no one to represent them here in Australia. After several emails and months of waiting, they cannot admit that their unit is faulty and handballs the issue to the retailer who sold it and the… Read more

retailer cannot fix the issue. At the end of the day , it is an expensive charger and if it goes wrong, you have no customer service in Australia

Terrible, faulty lasted a week – Unit failed to recognise it was connectes to a battery at all. Faulty unit twice in a row two different unit. Batteries had volts still didn't recognise them. I don't think the quality is good at all.

Failed just after warranty expired – Was great while it worked but just outside the warranty period the 'mode' function stopped working which means I can't charge smaller batteries or use the recondition function. Shop around for others, I thought this would last longer.

Get the Aldi one – Half the price of this one and will last twice as long. Poor product. Why you would buy 3 is completely beyond me. I learnt my lesson after one of them.

Good while it works – This is the third CTEK charger I have owned. The first one failed after about 3-4 years (internal relay). This one was good until just a few weeks ago when it stopped working on a new AGM battery. Started becoming intermittent, then wouldn't recognise that it was connected to any battery. It is around 4-5 years old. These come with a 5 year… Read more

warranty so it's no surprise that something made in China would last just the warranty period before failing. The original Swedish design is great but to keep manufacturing costs down they are manufactured in China. I have no doubt that components are used that would not be at the tolerance of the original design requirements and probably have a known obsolescence. I don't think there are any relays in these new ones they are all electronic (the earlier ones had relays or a single relay).

I'm not sure if I will buy another CTEK, as these MXS 5.0 are not cheap and if the longevity is always going to be in question.

CTEK MXS 5.0 Test & Charge just works! – I have no fetish about battery charging so all I really want is one that charges. Have one car that we don't use a lot. As a result, battery fails from time to time. While I have an old 4amp battery charger. It is impossible to tell if it is working. LED lights up when battery is wrongly connected, fails or charge is finished. So how do I tell if… Read more

it is actually working?! It does have an analog needle meter but that doesn't work when the light is lit.

So when I found this CTEK does 8 cycles and it also does battery testing, I decided to sink my money into one. Would have loved to have a meter telling me about voltage and all that. All it has is LEDs. Anyway, it looks well constructed and the best thing is my batteries are bubbling when being charged. That tells me it is charging.

I have no long term experience so can't tell you if it would last. Have only had it for a month and used it 3 times, both recond and normal charge cycles. It told me one of the batteries is poor while another is fair. The poor battery actually starts the car quickly while the better one is the one for which I bought it for. Lesson learnt is that one should get a higher capacity battery. The poorer battery is 550CCA battery while the better, new battery is 410CCA. I did contemplate buying a new battery given it would cost roughly the same as a new car battery. However, I really wanted to know how the batteries are going.

My only rants about this charger is that it is painted silver. It is prone to be scratched, not that I have done that yet. I would prefer the colour is in the plastic like the marine version (not confirmed but thats how it looks to me). As a result, bought a rubber / silicone cover for it. However it only covers the edges. Another thing is that the alligator clips could have been rubberised to give better grip.

[09/MAR/20 Update] - Just looking back at this review and noticed all other reviews are essentially negative reviews. Admittedly, I probably used the unit about 10 times in the 2+ years I have it. It is still going strong. I wonder if others have it constantly running. It does get hot during use. The only problem I have with it is the plastic cover on the alligator clips comes off. As said in my review, it can use better alligator clips with rubber grip.