Is it ok to remove battery for charging? Will I just have to maybe clear some codes after refitting?

Sorry but I'm not the best person to ask.  Other guys on this forum are better placed to answer your question. Good luck in your search.

Normally all you lose is the clock time and trip mileage.

There will be a few warning lights up on replacement but a short drive including steering lock to lock and they auto clear.

Edited 2 June, 20242 yr by aubrey

22 hours ago, Blue8793841 said:

Is it ok to remove battery for charging? Will I just have to maybe clear some codes after refitting?

You can remove the battery for charging if needed/wanted but it'd only be a slight gain on how long the battery charger takes to get the battery to full, still best to have a low amps long slow recharge.  If it's an older battery and you can take the six caps off then do check the electrolyte ("water") level in each cell and id you can see of any plates look cover or bent, usually the end cell.  If it's a completely sealed battery (some say they are when they're not) don't take any notice of the "magic eye" ball rely on the charger to tell you when it gets to full.

 

For a 2020 Octavia, below from the 2020 Owner's Manual, reading the Owner's Manual and referring to it when required can save you a lot of time, hassle and money with visits to Dealers, garages, mechanics and auto-electricians. 

 

ETA: link to VWSkoda Owner's Manuals. - https://manual.skoda-auto.com/004/en-com/Models

 

Edited 3 June, 20242 yr by nta16
ETA: hyperlink

7 1/2 years old Octavia here, 95% long trips, but with longer periods between. S/S is still active but only after longer trips. Battery voltage is 12.4 checked with a multimeter) and whenever I don't forget toc check in Skoda connectlite, I see the same value - when stopped, ofc.

No other electrical issues so far. I'll see if I have the time to replace the battery before winter time or wait until spring... 

Thanks for the information here to know what to ask for coding, as I won't go to the dealer (checked prices and for a replacement it's almost double for OE and +50% for other battery type they can install (I think Exide). When the time comes  I want to go with Varta AGM and I see that there are some decent garages that have the new A7 type, so technically the battery should be newer and not "suffer" from improper storage on their shelves.

I prefer to check battery voltage (at terminals with a multimeter) as many hours as possible after the car has been run (allowing say 0.2-0.3v if the car is running stuff and computers doing their stuff) and when required to recharge the battery with a charger maintainer after reading the instructions in the car's Owner's Manual and for charger, I charge to full on the battery charger.  Better to do a preventative (full) recharger with charger before the start/stop makes itself inactive when it would normally be active as the more often and longer the battery is below that level is chipping away at the overall useful life and its longevity.

 

I always fully charge any new battery to 100%/"full" on a charger maintainer before fitting it to the car regardless of its type or going on to a VW car or not, that way I know the battery has the best start in its working life I can give it.

 

Getting a battery as fresh as possible from manufactured production is a good idea but good sellers I think tend to have a good turnover of most batteries of most car batteries so good stock turnover.

 

SwatCat, I personally would want to get your battery to about 10 years old with the simple, easy, clean-hands occasional, when required, use of an appropriate battery charger maintainer, it doing its work while the car is parked up unused while I doing anything other than farting about on a car.

 

Edited 10 October, 20241 yr by nta16

Started having problems with my battery over the past 6 months, car struggling/failing to start.

The battery is now five years old (see the images for the brand and details) 

(I'm not using the car much these days due to shoulder surgery)

 

As can be seen from my charger, the battery charge drops a lot over an 18 hour period

I charged it to full yesterday at 6pm (it was at 20% full before the charge), and checked the following day at midday and it was down to approx 40%

That said, I went on hols for 10 days in July and the car started first time When I came back which was surprising

Subsequent starts would require a jump start (from a NOCO Boost unit) but occasionally it'd start without a boost.

With the engine started, battery voltage gets to 14v (which I think is indicative of the alternator functioning ok?)

 

When the battery is charged to full the stop start system seems to work okay.

 

My question is whether there could be some current drain which is pulling the battery voltage down overnight? (For example alarm/immobiliser etc)

If so, what would be the best way to measure this? I have a multimeter but not too sure if that's the appropriate tool for this purpose.

 

My next experiment will be to detach the battery from the car, charge it to full, and then check the charge 24 hours later to see if it has dropped.

Any advice appreciated - thanks!

 

 

 

Measured at 1pm the following day (40% full)

3 hours ago, FergalK said:

Started having problems with my battery over the past 6 months, car struggling/failing to start.

The battery is very low when it struggles to start the engine, the battery needs to be fully recharged with an appropriate battery charger, following the instructions for charging in the car's Owner's Manual and the charger and using as lower amperage for charging as practical (so may take at least a full day if not two of recharging).

 

If your car is 2015 and the AGM battery is only 5 years old and you have a battery charger that suggests to me that there is a problem somewhere, perhaps with the car ( car's charging or monitoring system, drain dashcam or other)  or perhaps there was a 'coding' issue when this battery was installed or perhaps inappropriate use or lack of use of the battery charger.

 

Try removing the battery from the car (after reading your Owner's Manual for disconnecting/reconnecting and what might need resetting on the car) and fully recharging the battery as low and slow as possible or the "pulse repair" setting but if you've been flogging the battery with trying to start the engine you've possibly flogged the poor battery to death.

 

I've got to drive my wife to drink now but if you look back at posts in this thread and do search the Fabia Mk3 forum you should find lots of threads and posts on the battery, battery recharging, battery 'coding' and such stuff, many from me but also others (some where other believe the car's modern alternator can take full care of the situation regardless of short journeys despite many threads and posts proving otherwise).

 

Good luck.

 

@FergalK sorry, rushing last reply, I've more time now to fully read your post and respond to it.

 

The Yuasa YBX9096 AGM battery should have been a good battery for your car model and unless you've added something to your car that's power hungry or constant drain I would have expected a longer life from it.  But if the battery is allowed to go very low in charge, or too low too often, it never fully recovers.  The manufacturer's leaflet has it requires a 4-amp recharge, which would be the most I'd recharge at obviously it can take more and will be quicker recharging but that won't be as effective or as long lasting, if you have been doing much higher rate (and quicker) recharging with you battery charger, or not leaving it long enough to fully recharge, then that will have a less than satisfactory effect and accumulative effect (as with all recharging and use of battery).  The Owner's Manual has 0.1 so up to 7-amps on your 70 Ah battery (not as good as 4, 3, 2 or less amps) but your charger might have 8, 10, 12-amps settings available I've no idea (I'd guess 8). - https://cdn.tayna.com/datasheets/YUASA_YBX9096_DATASHEET.pdf

 

If the non-starting has been going on this long then your best bet is perhaps just to fit a new battery and do preventative recharge if and when required before the battery gets too low, before rather than after it gets too low.

 

 The new battery does need to be 'coded' in correctly, this will also check if the present battery was 'coded' correctly (it was reported by a Briskoda member that his auto-electrician put in 7 Ah instead of 70Ah, why the car's computer programming would allow this is a different matter).

 

Personally before fitting the new AGM battery to my wife's 2015 Fabia I charged it to 100% so that I knew exactly how it was at installation in case I needed to do subsequent checking shortly after fitting as the AGM (or start/stop).

 

The multimeter is just the tool for initial checking of the battery and car's charging system as you can put the probes directly on to the battery terminal posts to get actual direct reading from the battery.

 

The start/stop system not being active at times it should be is the first sign that the battery is in a low state of charge, often just driving the car with the car's charging system able to fully do the job that is enough to get the battery to a higher state of charge but this does depend on how much can go into the battery and how much electric is being used in the car at that time, the type of journey and driving will also effect this.

 

I'm surprised you've not had warnings light and messages about the battery and possibly all sorts of other unexpected warnings (and unseen error codes) but perhaps you laid the battery low once but it's managed to struggle on enough perhaps helped by some recharges enough to keep other warning and issues away.

 

With modern cars the battery not being able to start the engine is a sure sign that the battery is very low in state of charge, usually you have lots of signs of low charge before this but some people do report a sudden drop (or "death") of their battery and the engine won't start, whatever the cause that's the situation they find themselves in.  Often, and I'd suggest very often, it could be recovered from, but not always.

 

Long story short. -  https://www.tayna.co.uk/car-batteries/yuasa/ybx9096/

 

Whatever you do or decide let us know how you get on.

 

Edited 26 October, 20241 yr by nta16
missing words

2016 Scout with stock battery still. It's only given me a hard time a couple times when it was -30C outside, which is to be expected. That's why I got a Noco GB70 to give it the jolt it needs if it gets cranky in the cold winter. Starts right up with that one, so I just travel with it when it's that cold just in case.

 

1 hour ago, Scout-MKIII said:

2016 Scout with stock battery still. It's only given me a hard time a couple times when it was -30C outside, which is to be expected. That's why I got a Noco GB70 to give it the jolt it needs if it gets cranky in the cold winter. Starts right up with that one, so I just travel with it when it's that cold just in case.

I'd sooner have the battery on a (charger) maintainer if required but if it's regularly -30C and you can't get a bigger battery in the space I too might carry a jump-starter but I'd not want to use it too often (in UK many would forget to charger that up when required).  I'd certainly use better engine (and if manual better gearbox) oil(s) for those temperatures than VW Dealerships for greater margins and protection and ease of vehicle use and engine starting.

 

A 2017, 19, 21, 23/4 vehicle battery demands and use can be more than 2015/6 models so more to maintain as regards the battery with the later models or more frequent changes of expensive battery.

 

It might not be too much longer in the UK before we have the first wave of car engine starting issues and breakdown call-outs because of "battery" issues in the UK, shelf stocks of new batteries are usual good for the first wave of premature (and often unnecessary) battery replacements.

 

@nta16 - thanks for the info - I put the battery on "Pulse repair" charge mode yesterday, (it took longer to charge than the normal mode)

Unfortunately when inspected today it was down to 60% charge so it seems like a genuine problem with the battery.

I will charge it once again on Pulse repair mode just in case I get different results.

I doubt if the warranty period extends to 5 years but will have a talk with the garage that installed it on the off chance they might give me a discount on a new one

@FergalK personally I don't put too much store by marketing things like "pulse" and "intelligent" and "smart", a repair / recover setting can work but not always, I assume your charger is suitable for start/stop and AGM batteries.

 

Once you've severely weakened the battery it can be difficult to recover anywhere near fully and sometimes you can't usefully recover it for any reasonable period of service., your charger might well have saved the battery if used earlier when the battery trouble first started and might have avoided this outcome if used in a preventative manner but I don't think this battery will be any good for even simple very old car use, perhaps running a radio or light in garage, for a while.

 

Your charger (if suitable for AGM) will be fine to look after the replacement battery when required if used sooner and/or for preventative recharges when required, or as a maintainer if the vehicle is parked up for a number of weeks (see Owner's Manual).  But I personally would give that charger away if it can't se set to lower, slower recharging and instead buy something like the following example, there are obviously many others and suppliers to choose from, Aldi or Lidl (I forget which) about this time of year sell perfectly good ones, just get one 3, 4 or 5 amps at most for maintenance (and recovery without a setting saying so).  Ring 4-amp "smart" charger - https://shop.ringautomotive.com/rsc904-4a-smart-battery-charger-maintainer.html

Here's the previous model (RSC804) being used on my wife's car over night, weather went down to -3C IIRC, 16 hours to full charge the AGM battery and it wasn't even that low in charge (cold doesn't help with charging hence 'winter' setting for when I guess below (+)5C.   

 

Tayna (£145.81) appear to give 4 years guarantee, Halfords (£237.19) give 5 years , which you'd expect given the price difference!  This has nothing to do with how long the battery will last as it's the same battery from both of them and I'd expect it to last much longer than 5 years, the guarantee will have conditions of use/abuse/neglect  but if you can get any sort of refund/discount from the selling garage on a new battery I'd imagine it would be because they sell it for a lot more than the Tayna, or even perhaps Halfords, price.

 

As your car and all that's on it gets even older than its present 9 years you will learn even more the importance of its 12V car battery being in a good state of charge, and good state of health.  (ETA: even more important on cars from say 2019 onwards).

 

HTH.  Good luck.   

Edited 27 October, 20241 yr by nta16
ETA:

23 hours ago, nta16 said:

I'd sooner have the battery on a (charger) maintainer if required but if it's regularly -30C and you can't get a bigger battery in the space I too might carry a jump-starter but I'd not want to use it too often (in UK many would forget to charger that up when required).  I'd certainly use better engine (and if manual better gearbox) oil(s) for those temperatures than VW Dealerships for greater margins and protection and ease of vehicle use and engine starting.

 

A 2017, 19, 21, 23/4 vehicle battery demands and use can be more than 2015/6 models so more to maintain as regards the battery with the later models or more frequent changes of expensive battery.

 

It might not be too much longer in the UK before we have the first wave of car engine starting issues and breakdown call-outs because of "battery" issues in the UK, shelf stocks of new batteries are usual good for the first wave of premature (and often unnecessary) battery replacements.

 

When you live in the middle of nowhere you get used to remember to charge things like that. The one I got is meant to handle a lot bigger engines than I got, which is why I got it so it would be better to handle the cold. First time I tried it, the car fired up like it was summertime so I know it's dependable. That was after I had tried to crank it till I knew it just wouldn't start on its own(which is no more than 3-4 tries in the winter)

It's more -15 to -20C normally, but some periods we get -30C and that is a big difference especially for electronic equipment. I especially don't use the webasto heater at all even though I got one, because it empties the battery very fast(I'd rather want to start the car than a slightly less cold car) and I personally feel it's very ineffective. If it doesn't make it warm but just slightly warms up the front window, I see no point in it. Then it's better to just start up the car and let it warm up that way.

So, even though I have a booster there's no point trying to empty the battery for fun, so I'd rather want to be able to start the car normally and just have the booster as a backup.

 

6 minutes ago, Scout-MKIII said:

It's more -15 to -20C normally, but some periods we get -30C and that is a big difference especially for electronic equipment.

That's a very good point for things on the car and independent.  On the rare very cold winter's day here I've had to bring some electronic tools from the shed into home to warm them enough to use outside effectively, one being a modern battery charger. 😆

 

8 minutes ago, Scout-MKIII said:

I especially don't use the webasto heater at all even though I got one, because it empties the battery very fast

A chap from Sweden was asking about pre-heaters, found a race car mains electric powered coolant preheater but it was very expensive and needed to be quite a while to warm things but racing is higher pre-heat temperature cold start could be a lot less but also starting from a lot lower ambient temperature, there also stuff for oil and battery and battery insulation of course.  I couldn't find the pre-heater coil of pipe that I'm sure I used to see for "classic" cars but perhaps it's a false memory or I'm dreaming.

 

21 minutes ago, Scout-MKIII said:

even though I have a booster there's no point trying to empty the battery

Empty the battery too deep and or too often then as we've ben looking at and discussing the battery won't last as long as it should and possibly turn into a sudden distress purchase after a breakdown or failure to start engine, as part of the Number 1 reason for UK breakdown call outs.

 

Personally I don't like freezing temperatures at all, never have, but now I'm getting (even) older I don't even like single digits in the positive, I also don't like the heat, rain or snow .  .  .  🙃

 

@nta16, not sure but on your picture the charger seems connected directly on the battery minus port.

I believe it's written to be connected to a car plate above, to avoid damage to the electronics.

1 hour ago, Sec8200 said:

@nta16, not sure but on your picture the charger seems connected directly on the battery minus port.

I believe it's written to be connected to a car plate above, to avoid damage to the electronics.

Not damage, but to avoid confusing the battery management system.

3 hours ago, Sec8200 said:

@nta16, not sure but on your picture the charger seems connected directly on the battery minus port.

Hi, good point, sorry it does look a bit like that but it's not, this was just a quick photo I took on a cold night, the charger maintainer earth lead is connected to an earth lead connection point on the body of the car.

 

I hope this shows it more. -

 

Do I need VCDS or OBD Eleven to update the battery info when changing the battery? Or can I do it through an old OBD2 dongle with the car scanner pro app which I have to hand?

3 minutes ago, Tommy_L said:

 Or can I do it through an old OBD2 dongle with the car scanner pro app which I have to hand?

Only if the app can read/write the J367 module which is a subsystem of the J533 CAN Gateway at address 19.

17 hours ago, Tommy_L said:

Do I need VCDS or OBD Eleven to update the battery info when changing the battery?

Some places that change batteries can do it for you, possibly at an additional cost.

 

Or there is a train of thought that some apply that if the new battery is the same type as previously fitted (and 'coded') and the same Ah rating, or near enough, that the system will sort things for itself.  Some have posted on this site they have done that and things have been fine x-number of years later.  Whether over the long term the battery life is shorten would take time and circumstances to tell.  I don't think there's too much of a panic that the new battery must be 'coded' instantly it's installed.    

 

If you have the facilities available then it makes sense to 'code' the replacement battery but if you buy a scan tool only to 'code' the battery in then it doesn't make financial sense if that costs more than getting someone else to do it.  There are Briskoda members with VCDS and other tools that can 'code' the battery in, and do scan tool reports, delete error codes and some a lot more.  Most just want beer tokens, a few are professional services so want different renumeration.  A link to a list of those members at the end.

 

Who ever does the 'coding' like all data input it has to be accurate, one member posted that his professional auto-electrician put 7 Ah instead of 70 Ah which gave the replacement battery a short life (why VW's computer program allowed this error is beyond me).

 

It's important to put the type of battery (EFB/AGM) the (correct) Ah rating and change the "serial number", as illustrated below when a Briskoda member 'coded' my AGM replacement battery (VW call AGM "fleece", of course they do!)  for me with his OBDEleven.

ETA: battery manufacturer is of no importance, as you can see I didn't even bother sticking with VW's three letter code, also as you can see the factory didn't bother with a real "serial number" on my wife's car or others that have been posted. 

 

 List of VCDS and others owners. - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/262215-list-of-vcds-owners-previously-known-as-vag-com-vcp-owners/#comment-3091029

 

 

Edited 26 February, 20251 yr by nta16
typos

I had a nightmare on my 2020 vRS last year - locked gateway so needed ODIS, and everywhere with one was booked up for weeks...