Battery replacement

[littleade]

The 61ah OE battery on my vRS has been showing signs of getting towards the end of it's useable life so I decided to change it before I got stranded with a flat battery. Most places will charge circa £20 to change it over so I decided to do it myself. I bought a 75ah battery with a 5 year warranty locally for £72

 

Tools required:

10mm spanner (preferably with insulated shaft but you can use a normal spanner if you don't have one)

13mm socket with extension bar and either T bar or ratchet

 

Procedure

 

Undo 10mm nut and disconnect negative (-) terminal first. This is so you don't accidentally short the positive terminal to ground when your undoing that.

repeat for positive (+) terminal

Remove insulating jacket if fitted

undo 13mm bolt, then remove that and fixing plate by sliding your hand between battery and rear of engine.

Remove old battery and replace with new one, checking negative and positive terminals are in the same place as the old one, i.e. negative terminal towards the rear of the engine bay.

replace fixing plate and 13mm bolt.

replace the insulating jacket.

connect and tighten positive terminal first

connect and tighten the negative terminal last. Again this is so you don't short the positive terminal out to ground when tightening the nut up.

 

things you will need to do after

reset the clock if you have one

reset the auto 1 touch electric windows if you have them. Do this by pressing and holding down the window button to open it until it stops at the bottom and keep it held down for a second or two after it's fully open. press and hold up the window switch to close the window again keeping it held for a second or two after it's fully closed. Repeat for all windows with I touch open and close

start the car

You will see the power assisted steering and TCS lights will stay on. Don't worry as these will go out as the safety systems calibrate themselves as you drive away-mine went out within a few hundred yards.

 

job done £20 saved

Edited 2 November, 2017 by littleade

[Jonboy984]

Thanks littleade for this straight forward simple guide.

 

Saved me some valuable time this afternoon while I swapped over my battery.

[Danny01204]

Thanks for the great how to guide and things to look out for! Just changed my battery on my 56 mk2 Vrs TDI estate, worked a treat! 

[Robbydazzler]

Was the old battery that you changed an EFB or an AGM type? If it was did you change it for the same type? Did you have to change any data to record the change of battery?

[Danny01204]

Robbydazzler I bought an enduroline 72ah battery from Tayna batteries if that helps. The only info I had to alter was the time (twist the trip reset for this left and right. Left = hours right = minutes) 

[bris24]

Hi,

I recently bought a battery from Tanya.  Good price, well packed and quick delivery.

I used a battery charger connected to the car battery connections to keep the 12v so clock radio settings etc weren't lost.

[Maloneon]

Hello,

Reviving an old post.. I changed my battery about 4 years ago and it needs a new one again. Does anyone know if changing the battery affects the self levelling xenon lights? I swear mine stopped doing the auto level thing at ignition after i changed the batt??

I've not investigated it much other than checking the wishbone sensor is all attached correctly so i don't think it's a mechanical problem.

Cheers

[Tilt]

@Maloneon Well, I guess the car has gone through 3 or 4 mot's without issue, so nothing to worry about imo.

 

My old A4 has adaptive xenons and I never noticed it doing the 'dance' thing as you mention.

I know some do, although I could never work out why they do this.

[Maloneon]

Yeah true Tilt. It annoys me that they used to self level when i started the car but now they're kind of at their lowest setting all the time. Like you say, they've always passed the MOT though!

[jrp]

I'm about to change the battery in my car. The last time I did it was 8.5 years ago (so can't really complain too much!-)

If I remember correctly, after disconnecting the battery last time, the horn (might have been the alarm, but it was a while ago) started beeping. I guess it must have some sort of backup battery, but is there a way to prevent it going off?

I don't remember what I did last time, maybe just annoyed the neighbours until the new battery was connected. I guess the usual things to try like locking & unlocking the car won't work without a battery connected.

[jrp]

In case someone else finds it  useful, I've just disconnected and changed the battery without any alarms/horns sounding when disconnecting the old one, or connecting the new one. I could have sworn it did at some point last time, but my memory may have been playing tricks (again),

[sthazza]

Just swapped the battery on my 62 plate for a yuasa 5000 silver from Tayna. 

 

When it came it had a red transit plug at either end. It said to remove plug(s) but not how many. Looking at the varta I took out it had two holes in the same positions, one was clear but the one at the positive end had a white plug in it just like the transit plugs. 

 

Anyone know if I should have both out, leave one of the red ones in, put the white one from the old battery into the new one?

 

Cheers

[AndyO2]

thanks for the tips. I'm on a 2016 / 66 Octavia (so slightly off spec here....) Worth pointing out that if you've an insulated jacket around the battery, you'll need to remove the battery cables before you can remove this, and it will likely be far easier to remove once you've also undone & removed the clamp.

When fitting the new battery REMEMBER to re-install the battery jacket BEFORE you attach the clamps (ok, I'd only just started tightening the first one!), I found it easier to get the jacket on before tightening the clamp.

 

There are other posts that cover using VCDS to tell the car that a new battery / changed battery capacity has been fitted.

[keef690]

Just a quick FYI. The window reset only requires each window to have the button held up for one second. You do not have to open, hold down, then close, hold up as per the first post. Can be useful to know if it is hissing down with rain!