Battery Replacement

[MKSpots]

Hi everyone. I have a late 2018 Fabia. I haven't been using the car as much during the Pandemic as before, but I've made sure to drive it occasionally to not drain the battery fully, and if I know I won't use it for a while, I'd charge the battery up with a charger, or leave it connected to a tender, as my dealer suggested I do. I went to start it a few days ago (after doing around a 600KM round trip in it 2 days earlier) and it barely started. I plugged it in and charged it overnight fully. The next morning I unplug it, and it won't start the first two times, and displays the low battery warning. Third time lucky, it started and drove fine, and displayed no battery charge issue. Battery charger shows a fully charged battery. This morning, car shows it needs a charge, and the battery is flat again, the voltage is flying all over the place and shows flat on the charger too (Tried 2 chargers and same issue, fine on other cars). Now the car is still on warranty, but the dealer is very very problematic and I need the car, so I honestly rather spend some money on a battery myself and be done with it (if that's the issue, which I think it is). The dealer quoted me 1200 złoty (235 pounds) and I found one online for the Fabia for 98 pounds, which is still mental to me, considering I buy a bigger batteries for my other cars for 200 złoty (40 pounds). The question I have is; do I need a special start stop battery and the same model specifically for this Fabia (As my dealer claims I do) or can I just throw in a standard 12V 60ah in the car and be done with it? Also, yes the battery and car is on warranty, but the dealer wants to take it for 7 days to test the vehicle on the road and with their charging systems, and honestly if I can buy one for 40 pounds I rather just do that.

[AGFalco]

1 hour ago, MKSpots said:

do I need a special start stop battery

 

Yes you do. A normal battery will die within 6 months.

Check if it is an EFB or AGM Stop / Start type battery.

 

1 hour ago, MKSpots said:

drive it occasionally to not drain the battery fully

Driving the car wont fully charge the battery by design!  

 

Are you using a battery charger that is suitable for a Stop / Start battery?

Also, are you connecting the battery charger to both battery terminals?

 

Thanks, AG Falco

[MKSpots]

3 minutes ago, AGFalco said:

 

Yes you do. A normal battery will die within 6 months.

Check if it is an EFB or AGM Stop / Start type battery.

 

Driving the car wont fully charge the battery by design!  

 

Are you using a battery charger that is suitable for a Stop / Start battery?

Also, are you connecting the battery charger to both battery terminals?

 

Thanks, AG Falco

Okay, So I need a Start/Stop battery even if I never use Start/Stop? That feature gets turned off immediately when I get in the car and it's actually gonna get coded out soon. it's the worst feature in modern cars (imo).

Yes the charger is designed for Start/Stop, it was recommended by my dealer and I checked before I got it. Yes both battery terminals are connected. I've used the same charger on a Polo GTi, which is about the same age and twice the KM, works perfectly and that's why I'm shocked this battery has issues, honestly first time in my life I experience a battery behaving this terribly, it's another disappointment with this car. Also, yes I realize that driving won't charge it fully, and short drives can actually hurt it more, but I've never had battery charge issues (with a car with a working alternator) after a 600+KM drive. Also I'm still shocked at the prices of the battery for this car, that's why I'm asking about 40 pound alternatives, even the battery for an RS6 costs less, which is why I'm shocked.

[AGFalco]

5 minutes ago, MKSpots said:

Okay, So I need a Start/Stop battery even if I never use Start/Stop?

No, but understand the consequences before you do this.

If you remove the small Black wire connected to the Negative terminal you wont need a Stop / Start Battery.

 

I also always turn off the Stop / Start for every journey.

 

7 minutes ago, MKSpots said:

Yes both battery terminals are connected.

 

You should NOT connect the charger to both terminals.

The negative lead needs to be connected to the earthing post on the inside wing near the negative battery terminal.

Note that the nut on the end of the post is painted and if you connect to this the battery wont charge.

You can find details in the car handbook on this.

 

Is the car a petrol or Diesel?

 

Can you get the battery checked / tested first including the charging rate under load?

You can get a devise that will plug in to the power outlet / cigarette lighter that can show the voltage in real time.

 

I have a 2016 Petrol at 80,000 km with no problems with the original battery.

 

Thanks, AG Falco

[MKSpots]

14 minutes ago, AGFalco said:

No, but understand the consequences before you do this.

If you remove the small Black wire connected to the Negative terminal you wont need a Stop / Start Battery.

 

I also always turn off the Stop / Start for every journey.

 

 

You should NOT connect the charger to both terminals.

The negative lead needs to be connected to the earthing post on the inside wing near the negative battery terminal.

Note that the nut on the end of the post is painted and if you connect to this the battery wont charge.

You can find details in the car handbook on this.

 

Is the car a petrol or Diesel?

 

Can you get the battery checked / tested first including the charging rate under load?

You can get a devise that will plug in to the power outlet / cigarette lighter that can show the voltage in real time.

 

I have a 2016 Petrol at 80,000 km with no problems with the original battery.

 

Thanks, AG Falco

Thanks for the response. I'll look at that tip, I'll remove the black wire.

 

See, I also thought I shouldn't have both terminals connected, but this charger/tender says you should, the dealer suggested it, and it's been working fine so far on all my cars. The car is the dreadful 1.0 3 Cylinder Petrol 110hp.

 

I'm gonna have the local garage check it again, it seems it's charging fine but then discharging like it's powering a bloody city. The voltage goes up to 14.5 according to the battery charger. My car is barely a year old and 25k KM and it's a mess. It's been to the dealer 3 times for warranty work, and honestly the more I drive it, and the more things that fail, the angrier I get with it. It's a massive disappointment.

[AGFalco]

35 minutes ago, MKSpots said:

but this charger/tender says you should, the dealer suggested it, and it's been working fine so far on all my cars

 

It might be suggesting this and assuming the battery is not connected to a car.

The charger doesn't know what car battery it is being attached to.

 

40 minutes ago, MKSpots said:

The car is the dreadful 1.0 3 Cylinder Petrol 110hp.

I have driven a car with this engine and was impressed with it.

 

If the battery is loosing charge quickly then try disconnecting the battery if you don't plan to use the car for a while.

This might indicate if the car is draining the battery when connected.

 

Is the car left inside a garage?

Is the car locked when not in use?

 

Cars that are not used much always have battery problems, and the newer the car the worse it is.

 

Thanks, AG Falco

[MKSpots]

Just now, AGFalco said:

 

It might be suggesting this and assuming the battery is not connected to a car.

The charger doesn't know what car battery it is being attached to.

 

I have driven a car with this engine and was impressed with it.

 

If the battery is loosing charge quickly then try disconnecting the battery if you don't plan to use the car for a while.

This might indicate if the car is draining the battery when connected.

 

Is the car left inside a garage?

Is the car locked when not in use?

 

Cars that are not used much always have battery problems, and the newer the car the worse it is.

 

Thanks, AG Falco

Yeah I think the engine is a joke, although it might come from the fact all my previous cars were more powerful and had bigger engines. The one thing I like is fuel economy, although it's not great compared to a diesel either. I would say it's just enough for this car, anything less powerful I'd struggle with. 

 

I'm now using the car almost daily, and the weirdest thing with the batter is it didn't die after sitting for weeks, it started acting up after sitting for 18 hours after multiple days of driving, and a longer trip the day before. The car isn't in the garage, it just sits on the street, if it was cold as hell I'd consider it an issue, but it's barely -3C at night. And yes, the car is locked, all the lights are off. Again, never had an issue with it before, it actually held battery life great usually, even after leaving it for 2 weeks when I went on a trip it still started fine and ran fine, it's just gone to hell now. 

[AGFalco]

Sounds more like there is a problem with the car that is affecting the battery?

 

Thanks, AG Falco

[rum4mo]

I agree with the comments about always connecting jump leads and charging leads  only using the battery +VE post and the body earth bonding domed nut, I've cleared the paint off a couple of the points and coat them with Vaseline when not using them, to protect it from corrosion.

 

Also, as said you would need to use a current meter to check for current drain after the car had shut down all its usual systems, as well as ideally having a battery tester to check its CCA or cold cranking current delivery ability. These stop/start  cars have smart charging and so will only ever attempt to make sure that the battery will restart the car, as opposed to to keeping the battery fully charged, so checking the battery with a voltmeter while the engine is running could leave you a bit confused - the plan is to stuff lots of charge into the battery only when on the over run, in a bid to save wasting fuel/emissions.. The car's own systems namely the BMS area within the CAN-Gateway(probably) holds many statistics on the battery, or its interpretation of the car's battery, if you had a VAG compliant scan tool, you would be able to check these channels or fields - a dealership could do that but would probably just drop a new battery and hope that solved this problem.

 

Battery prices, I bought a new 95Ah AGM battery for my 2011 Audi S4, the best price I could get for a Bosch S5 013 was £153, an Audi dealership would have sold me one I'd guess, for £385 and "only" charge me £100 for swopping the batteries and recoding the BMS for that new battery, so in my case, it has cost me £153 instead of  £485, maybe battery prices are a bit lower for you, I have priced a new EFB and AGM battery for my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS SEL and the "next size up" is cheaper but still over £100 for the AGM version.  At 32K miles, that August 2015 VW Polo EFB is still working okay but its BMS stored statistics claims its present storage capacity has dropped to 37Ah from its original 59Ah, so it is dying slowly, but not yet a problem, stop/start normally gets switched off by me when driving it, and it gets connected to a CTEK charger/maintainer after only being used for a short shopping trip, ie only 10 miles and when not being used for maybe a week, so it has been looked after very well all its life.

[MKSpots]

26 minutes ago, rum4mo said:

I agree with the comments about always connecting jump leads and charging leads  only using the battery +VE post and the body earth bonding domed nut, I've cleared the paint off a couple of the points and coat them with Vaseline when not using them, to protect it from corrosion.

 

Also, as said you would need to use a current meter to check for current drain after the car had shut down all its usual systems, as well as ideally having a battery tester to check its CCA or cold cranking current delivery ability. These stop/start  cars have smart charging and so will only ever attempt to make sure that the battery will restart the car, as opposed to to keeping the battery fully charged, so checking the battery with a voltmeter while the engine is running could leave you a bit confused - the plan is to stuff lots of charge into the battery only when on the over run, in a bid to save wasting fuel/emissions.. The car's own systems namely the BMS area within the CAN-Gateway(probably) holds many statistics on the battery, or its interpretation of the car's battery, if you had a VAG compliant scan tool, you would be able to check these channels or fields - a dealership could do that but would probably just drop a new battery and hope that solved this problem.

 

Battery prices, I bought a new 95Ah AGM battery for my 2011 Audi S4, the best price I could get for a Bosch S5 013 was £153, an Audi dealership would have sold me one I'd guess, for £385 and "only" charge me £100 for swopping the batteries and recoding the BMS for that new battery, so in my case, it has cost me £153 instead of  £485, maybe battery prices are a bit lower for you, I have priced a new EFB and AGM battery for my wife's 2015 VW Polo 1.2TSI 110PS SEL and the "next size up" is cheaper but still over £100 for the AGM version.  At 32K miles, that August 2015 VW Polo EFB is still working okay but its BMS stored statistics claims its present storage capacity has dropped to 37Ah from its original 59Ah, so it is dying slowly, but not yet a problem, stop/start normally gets switched off by me when driving it, and it gets connected to a CTEK charger/maintainer after only being used for a short shopping trip, ie only 10 miles and when not being used for maybe a week, so it has been looked after very well all its life.

Thanks for the response. I'm gonna leave the car at a local garage tomorrow and see what they say about it, because I don't trust the Skoda dealer at all after what they've pulled before. I wish my dealer would just drop a new battery in, the car is on warranty but they've already told me they won't replace it because it's a part that get naturally used up, like the brakes or tyres... 

 

Also the battery prices you paid are absolutely shocking to me. My mate replaced the battery in his RS6 C7, it was 110 pounds for a new Bosch 95Ah 850A Start Stop battery, and he got 15 pounds back for returning the old one, so 95 pounds.

 

Edit: Not that you overpaid, I'm shocked batteries and car parts cost so much in the UK.

 

Edited 1 January, 2021 by MKSpots

[rum4mo]

Yes, exactly the same battery size and type as my car, UK prices for many car parts are very high when compared with other European countries, maybe that is partly to blame for the vote to leave EEC went the way it did, it could have been avoided if governments had talked seriously about things - well maybe, now too late for that and UK must move on.

 

Edit:- things are probably not s simple as I'm suggesting, maybe a battery costs the same in both countries when compared with how many hours wages of the average worker it costs in each country across Europe.

Edited 1 January, 2021 by rum4mo

[AGFalco]

My car ( Fabia III ) has an 027EFB 60AH which I can get for less than £100.00 here in the UK

 

I looked up the price of an item for my car to come from Poland two weeks ago and delivery was quotes at £18.00

Today the cost of delivery for the same part £119.76.  Brexit price? 

 

Hopefully the people that voted to leave the EU can pay the extra for me! 

 

Thanks, AG Falco

[Eccles]

Don't understand all this at all, there has got to be something wrong somewhere and you dealer knows it but has not sufficient intergrity to do the right thing. I just changed my EFB battery at 5 years 7months and the replacement stop/start battery bought in the UK cost me £83. I do not know what £'s a dealer would want and care less because my reliable "mobile" mechanic helped me to install it for just £10. Unfortunately EU rules require all cars now to be fitted with "stop/start" because they imagine that the policy will contribute to reduced air pollution and global warming. Not true of course because most people switch it off (me included) in order to get a longer life from the battery.