My vehicle bought S/H recently came with what looked like a very new Bosch S3 battery but I cannot find or decipher a manufacturing date, I have an identical 096 no name (Lion I think) battery from my previous car which was bought in 2016, its standby voltage is 0.8v higher than the Bosch which sits around 12V dead so for the moment I have fitted that and it does seem to have more oomph

 

The following are the codes embossed across one side of the top:

 

G3C6592721168 and 536209283A11

 

On the other side is hot melt engraved UGSD 43

 

Can anyone decipher the manufacturing date from one of these please?

 

The Lion battery had been stored in a cold outside shed for several months but read 12.7 volts and was on the charger for only 10 minutes or so before switching over to standby charge, I think when the cell voltage reached 14.4v

 

The Bosch had been on the car overnight but otherwise fully charged by the alternator, it has been on charge an hour and has only reached 13.5v which if I removed the charger would soon fall away to probably 12.3v.

 

Its looking like the 2016 lion battery is the better of the two but the Bosch does look much newer.

2nd attempt   guess only Jan 2011  ps my 09 reg petrol 1.8 is still on is original bosch   but getting tired,  (like me)

Edited 19 January, 20197 yr by cheshire_cat

Thanks, I think that you are right, I have reciepts for a "Lion" battery fitted in March 2011 followed by an AA call out sheet in December showing it as dead then a no charge reciept for the fitment of a "Platinum" battery under warranty.

 

Bosch are now calling their AGM range Platinum batteries, if anyone can confirm that the S3 range was called platinum in 2011 then the detective work is done, description on invoice is UKB096 Platinum batt.

 

Earlier on before your edit you had a link to a Bosch battery code decipher tool, if it was a good one could you repost it please.

 

Looks like I made the right decision in fitting the lower spec but 2016 Lion battery, the bosch one took a long time to fully charge on the bench but outside at close to zero degrees in the shed 6 hours later its still showing 13.0 volts so it looks to still be in excellent shape, I must have taken the measurement on the car while there was a parasitic load.

 

The Lion battery sounds like it has more oomph but as the car starts in half a rotation its hard to be sure.