Quote Originally Posted by bluey View Post
2008 Polo battery was behaving fine at 6 years (short trip shopping trolley duty) and a couple of months.

I recall reading some time ago that the design life of battery is 18-24 months - well Exide ones anyway. And that is consistent with a lifetime's experience of car batteries karking at about 3 years.

Interested to know if the CTEK battery charger will keep the battery going longer.....
I was ready to buy a new battery since mine was 3 years old and starting to slow down a little. After talking with the guy in Battery World (who could have just sold me a new battery) he said he expects 5 - 7 years out of the batteries in the Golf's and that my problem is about 99% short trips with no chance to replenish the battery. In my case if I start the Golf these days it's usually only round the corner to the train station or the local shops.

Long story short, he sold me a CTEK charger instead and it's wonderful. Every other month I plug it in and let it top off the battery and everything is working beautifully.

The Multivan is still on it's original battery and that's 5 years old now, I've run that across the CTEK too for a battery recondition cycle and it still doesn't look like it's slowing down anytime soon (fingers crossed). Of course I'm sure it will just pack it in at the most inconvenient time