Battery dying?

[The_Hawk]

The_Hawk: Wow - $68!! Why not buy yourself a cheap bluetooth ELM dongle and plug it into the OBD port (OBDII gives you all the information that the CTX unit claims to show)! Better still, just implement the SOC (State-Of-Charge) tweak - it costs nothing if you already have a VCDS/OBD11 device!

I do have both an ELM (a few actually ) and a RossTech cable... but I'm also driving a MkVI so don't have the SOC option anyway.
(also pretty much all the iOS app sucks, but that's a different story)
But I don't think I will be spending $68 for the dongle

[prn31]

So yesterday my family came back from a few days up on the NSW mid north coast (the Passat R36 didn't miss a beat) and I fired up the Golf GTI Performance after five days of slumbering in the garage....

There was nothing. It wouldn't even crank over. The battery was totally flat. After barely two years.,,,!

I jumped started the Golf and drove it for 20 minutes in the hope I would put some charge in it. But when I tried to start it it still wouldn't turn over. I tried to trickle charge the battery overnight, but that had little effect.

So I took it to my local VW dealer and to their credit they replaced it under warranty, did the recoding and gave it a wash and detail as well.

There were no signals that the battery was about to fail (unlike my R36) - no report or anything. The service advisor told me that they did replaced 5 batteries under warranty today.

[gregozedobe]

When batteries fail suddenly and completely like that it can often be something like an internal connection coming adrift. This is much less common than slowly losing the ability to hold a charge, but still can happen. I once drove into a service station with a normally functioning electrical system, but when I went to start the engine 5 minutes later it was like yours - totally dead, nothing at all.

Unless it was a particularly big dealership 5 batteries under warranty in one day sounds rather a lot to me. Did they say whether it was mostly one particular model of car or spread over different models ?

[prn31]

I believe the dealer (on Sydney's north shore) changed batteries on two Polos and two Golfs including ours. Not sure what the fifth car was. I wonder whether these cars affected were 'second cars' that spent the Christmas break in the garage unused? Maybe it's afflicting cars with Stop/Start systems? My wife and I don't tend to turn it off...

[The_Hawk]

An interesting idea. These things tend to die in clusters, like when you hit the first real cold snap in winter... and maybe at this time as people come back from extended periods of cars sitting idle that manage to push batteries that were working fine over the edge.

There is a difference to people who only drive to the shops and back leaving the battery in a constant state of low charge and those who drive them longer distances every day who can maintain the charge. I do wonder if a combination of short trips + engine stop/start just put more pressure on batteries causing the to fail earlier than more tradtiional engine setups. It would be interesting if any manufacturer released stats on battery replacement on different models and if there was a common trend...

... it would then be interesting to see the cost of a battery vs the savings in fuel (vs the environmental impact of more batteries... sort of like when EVs are claimed at zero emmissions.... but then I'm getting off topic now aren't I

[prn31]

Our Golf has done 36K, made up mainly of a 20 minute commute with not a lot of stop/start and the odd long trip. I noted that the replacement battery was an EFB and I presume the original was also an EFB. I've just changed the battery on my Passat R36 wagon, which was the original AGM that had lasted 7.5 years with another Varta AGM at significant cost.

I wonder whether an AGM battery is a better bet long term than an EFB? I don't think that Varta list an EFB battery (E45) for the Golf in Australia - but they do list an AGM (E39.)

[Transporter]

Our 2012 Tiguan TDI has ss system which we don’t use and the AGM battery has still plenty of capacity remaining. Though, I top it up using the ctek charger on regular basis. The more expensive batteries usually don’t die suddenly and give a plenty of warning before they die.
The hot weather is a killer for the batteries, ideal charging temperature is bellow 25deg C, so if you charge your battery on a very hot day it’s not good, unless charger has a temperature sensor and limits the charging current.


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[Flipper Dog]

Two months to go before end of warranty and the battery died over the weekend. Purchased a CTEK charger and placed on charge for about 4 hours, still no go. Contacted VW roadside assist and to my surprise the operator actually knew what he was talking about, stated it was a dead battery and he would send out a roadside assist guy to replace it under warranty. Winning - new battery $450, VW with customer service - priceless.

[Hillbilly]

In winter mostly batteries face this issues. This is due to low flow of current.
Just wait for warm-up of engine. Once its Warm-up. You're ready for your travel or journey.

Bloody hard to warm up an engine that wont start though isnt it