Hi All, 

 

Recently my Superb Sportline has been failing to go into stop start every now and then. I usually do motorway journeys with the occasional drive around town. However since it has started getting colder in the UK stop start barely works, I drove around 100 miles yesterday and get the below message when stopped. The battery has been replaced after it broke down in February last year so hopefully it doesn't need another one. 

 

Has anyone else experienced this and is there some sort of fix for it?  

So your power consumption is high, lights, heater, radio etc on, low temps and your cars heater might be set 16*oC higher than the outside temp.

Good that the engine keeps running and the battery keeps getting a charge.

Just now, e-Roottoot said:

So your power consumption is high, lights, heater, radio etc on, low temps and your cars heater might be set 16*oC higher than the outside temp.

Good that the engine keeps running and the battery keeps getting a charge.

Sorry forgot to mention that this happens even if I drive with the heating set to off. 

Try putting your battery on a charge and see how it goes.

 

It might well need another battery, but then hopefully you have a warranty of more than 12 months on last years one fitted.

Lockdown and reduced miles and also the crap battery spec of them OEM and the cars charging systems is an issue.

after battery replace will work again

https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/488489-new-car-battery-time/?do=findComment&comment=5485684

 

Hi Danny, I suppose you do know that engine idle-stop is disabled if the seat belts aren't fastened.

Stop start doesn’t work when the engine us cold, it’s one of the areas when it doesn’t work, tgat and when in sport mode

5 hours ago, Warkman said:

Stop start doesn’t work when the engine us cold, it’s one of the areas when it doesn’t work, tgat and when in sport mode

It will work with the engine cold if you leave the heating off and just use the heated seat it will stop/start within a very short distance.

This seems a common problem. Mine is 14 months old with exactally the same error message. Turning off the blowers etc and charging the battery made no difference. 

I'm quite happy to live without stop/start, but I am curious what criteria it uses to decide whether to activate or not. 

 

3 hours ago, JBD1974 said:

This seems a common problem. Mine is 14 months old with exactally the same error message. Turning off the blowers etc and charging the battery made no difference. 

I'm quite happy to live without stop/start, but I am curious what criteria it uses to decide whether to activate or not. 

 

Very odd indeed. I was furious with the garage when the battery failed the first time as the car had only done 25k miles. I do wonder if it has something to do with the outside temperature, for me it has started working fine again but the temperature is now 6+ degrees and it stopped working when the temp was around 0-1 degrees. I do find that I get a different experience when driving the superb every time I use it. Would be nice if it was consistent. 
 

it’s due a major service soon so I’m going to ask the garage to do everything they can with it regardless of cost to make it as close to factory new as possible. 

4 hours ago, JBD1974 said:

This seems a common problem. Mine is 14 months old with exactally the same error message. Turning off the blowers etc and charging the battery made no difference. 

I'm quite happy to live without stop/start, but I am curious what criteria it uses to decide whether to activate or not. 

 

There is a fairly long list of what will disable the engine idle-stop - to quote a few - Drivers seat belt unfastened; Engine hood open; low internal temperature (risk of wind-screen fogging); Air-con not down to requested temperature; High electrical load/low battery voltage.  

In my car, stop start is always disabled...By me. 😁

 

I never use it as I don't like the idea of stressing out an expensive AGM battery and changing it early. 

4 hours ago, Warrior193 said:

There is a fairly long list of what will disable the engine idle-stop - to quote a few - Drivers seat belt unfastened; Engine hood open; low internal temperature (risk of wind-screen fogging); Air-con not down to requested temperature; High electrical load/low battery voltage.  

Heater set to screen only or on screen boost, wheels at an excessive angle, on a steep hill. Just a few more. If you have the colour display it will tell you.

1 hour ago, KeteCantek said:

In my car, stop start is always disabled...By me. 😁

 

I never use it as I don't like the idea of stressing out an expensive AGM battery and changing it early. 

Battery is well able for it as is the starter.

Battery life totally depends entirely on how it is treated from its first fitment. Any long period of time where it is allowed to discharge or it’s held in a low voltage state will permanently damage it. That includes any long stand times of 6 weeks or more in the distribution network from new, any similar storage time at a dealership, or low usage by the end customer esp with the current pandemic. 

 

AGM is more resistant to this and has the best chance of recovery.

 

Use it or lose it... or use a charger overnight once every 4 weeks  if it’s doing short journeys or tens of miles/month. Once the damage is done, a full recovery or improvement is very difficult. 

12 minutes ago, BigEjit said:

Battery life totally depends entirely on how it is treated from its first fitment. Any long period of time where it is allowed to discharge or it’s held in a low voltage state will permanently damage it. That includes any long stand times of 6 weeks or more in the distribution network from new, any similar storage time at a dealership, or low usage by the end customer esp with the current pandemic. 

 

AGM is more resistant to this and has the best chance of recovery.

 

Use it or lose it... or use a charger overnight once every 4 weeks  if it’s doing short journeys or tens of miles/month. Once the damage is done, a full recovery or improvement is very difficult. 

I'm my case I'm suspicious of it sitting for weeks, or even months during the first Lockdown. 

I also found reference in a golf manual to "the temperature of the vehicle battery is not too low or too high." 

So I also wonder about a cold battery. 

Out of curiosity I slapped a dvm across it and wasn't too impressed with 11.8

Yoinks! 11.8v is a little low.

 

Is that an EFB or AGM battery you have? (On the lid label). 

EFB. 

It also occurs to me that it isn't obvious that I only bought the car post (initial) lockdown and the dealer said it had sat waiting for them at skoda HQ, or some such waffle.

I've had a CTEK charger across it a couple of times, but I now think I'm just going to wait for it to crank its last crank!

That’s on its way out. The EFB on our Fab showed similar traits. S/S would only work for a week or so after a charge then the low battery light would ping on. I knew it was done at that point. Hardly surprising considering 15k miles in 4 years. 
 

EFB out, VARTA AGM in as it is the best option for low mileage infrequent use. Picked the replacement off the VARTA selection tool on their page, perfect!
 

Cold weather slows the chemical reactions in the battery right down and makes them less effective highlighting the damage present from discharge and heat decay damage from summer. 

My start stop

function stopped working, I unplugged the dash cam from the cigarette lighter and after 3-4 days it started to work again. 
 

I have also noticed that the engine seems to have calmed when running idle. (Apologies for the ****e description but I do hope understood my terminology). 👍

Dash cams and other plugins on a permanent live feed are another battery killer. Repeated discharge on downtime and recharging with the engine running works batteries harder and wears them out quicker.

 

 

38 minutes ago, BigEjit said:

That’s on its way out. The EFB on our Fab showed similar traits. S/S would only work for a week or so after a charge then the low battery light would ping on. I knew it was done at that point. Hardly surprising considering 15k miles in 4 years. 
 

EFB out, VARTA AGM in as it is the best option for low mileage infrequent use. Picked the replacement off the VARTA selection tool on their page, perfect!
 

Cold weather slows the chemical reactions in the battery right down and makes them less effective highlighting the damage present from discharge and heat decay damage from summer. 

Would you think AGM is better than EFB? Did you need to code in the AGM?

Coding depends on the car but most likely needed if changing from one battery type to another. I’m no expert on the car side. 

 

AGM is 100% way better than EFB. So good Rolls Royce fit 2 of them to the Phantom.

 

Like for like EFB will also work and is cheaper. If you are doing low miles for the foreseeable future, AGM will handle it better. Still need a boost charge every month if the car barely moves whatever battery is fitted. 

12 minutes ago, j caff said:

Would you think AGM is better than EFB? Did you need to code in the AGM?

if you change type, then cars coding needs to know that it is dealing with something different, so yes.    The type may be printed on it, but car has no way of asking the battery, so needs manually coding

Edited 11 January, 20215 yr by SurreyJohn

Thanks guys. My car is fitted with an Exide EFB it isn't showing any signs of weakness at the moment. I have VCDS so I'm assuming I can code in an AGM if I need one in the future. Anyone have a link to how it's done? I see Halfords have an AGM battery suitable for the Superb for €188 with a 5 year warranty, wouldn't be too bad as modern day batteries go.