On 11/08/2024 at 15:45, Bryfly said:

Guess I'm a bit paranoid I had a 2021 Karoq where the battery was always letting me down due to not much use, fingers crossed this one will be better...

Unless the battery in your new car is better it might be the same or worse.  It's rare to get bad batteries now usually it the owner/keepers letting the battery get too low in charge and too low too often.  Whether VW had computer program issues before or used undersized batteries I don't know, I know there was a (rare admitted VW) Recall on my wife's car (97CU) which my wife was told "was for the battery".

 

The number one cause for AA breakdown call outs is for batteries, the actual cause will very rarely actually be the battery mostly by far it will be owner/driver use, abuse and neglect of the battery.  RAC says the they deal with more flat batteries on the first working day of each year (post-Christmas) than on any other day. - https://www.briskoda.net/forums/topic/519903-flat-batteries-on-the-first-working-day-of-each-year

 

 

As always every one can do as they please on such things as car batteries and believe or not whatever they like, I just give my advice from decades of experience if some find it unacceptable that's fine.  😇

 

With a new battery, you should be able to leave the car for a few months without a problem.  I hadn't heard about leaving the bonnet a little open before.  Good idea.

I leave the bonnet cracked purely coz the emergency door release is one side and the bonnet opening lever the other, which in my garage is against the wall.  For me worst case scenario is my CTEK decides to stop playing (which has happened to a few among Disco3 & 4 owners) and battery dies.  At least I can easily get in to slap on my other heavy duty charger or jump the car from Mrs DSL’s car (assuming it’s not trapped in the garage behind my Karoq).  I’ve left Skippy for up to 5 months like that while travelling without issue.   I also make sure the car goes away dry, if at all possible, and the park brake is off. 👍

1 hour ago, DSL said:

and the park brake is off. 👍

Would be great to know, how do you ensure the parking brake is off..❓

Make sure auto brake = off, back into the garage and keep hand well away from the switch.  If I accidentally pull the switch (force of habit) then drive forward a little, back up and resist the temptation to pull the switch, again.

Edited 31 August, 20241 yr by DSL

On a very modern VW like a Škoda even with a new battery leaving it for a month or a few months will do the battery some harm, even if the battery is new it's still just a power store that depletes and given enough it will effect its life if only a little.  A reason why I fully charge a brand new battery before I fit it to the car, hopefully it doesn't take much to get it fully charged (and if it is fully charged great it only takes seconds).

 

If left for a month or a few months the car may well start, and start well, and the lights seem bright enough but the battery has been affected by being left on the car without a battery charger maintainer connected.

 

Left long enough a used battery may not fully recharge, it will charge but not to full on the charger.  I've had this twice this year with neighbour's cars, one was a less than 3 year old car, the other older but without start/stop, this one even though the battery had the "water" (electrolyte) level in each cell were fine and I was able to do a quick visual check on the plates in each cell and they seemed fine.  The batteries did recharge, but not to full, and where usable on the cars, still just parked up but I'd not trust either on a a very modern VW car like a Škoda.

 

16 hours ago, DSL said:

For me worst case scenario is my CTEK decides to stop playing (which has happened to a few among Disco3 & 4 owners) and battery dies.

I'm not impressed with CTeks based on my mate owing a couple of them and their high prices but I'm surprised by this, was it the CTEK, mains power supply or Disco 3 or 4 that caused this do you know?

 

A mate had an early Land Rover Disco in 1990 and when we went to the 20th anniversary LR Monthly magazine (?) big meet at Billing Aquadrome, just up the road from me, we went out in the LR demo Camel Disco and the LR man had a show of hands for who had what LR model, as he finished listed them off he turned to my mate and said my mate hadn't put his hand up and my mate said he'd not listed his model of the Disco  V8 to which the LR chap shaked my mate's hand saying he was the first Disco V8 owner he'd meet.

 

It was about 13 months old, under LR cover when it wouldn't start, the reason a speak of crud on the battery post terminal and/or battery post clamp, luckily in those days the breakdown employees where incentivised to sell a new battery unnecessarily.  Crud cleaned off and IIRC the battery remained on the Disco for a number of years later when the Disco was sold on.

  

1 hour ago, nta16 said:

The batteries did recharge, but not to full,

 

And how did you come to that conclusion?

Post deleted to save boring others and myself.

 

Edited 2 September, 20241 yr by nta16
deleted

8 hours ago, nta16 said:

I'm not impressed with CTeks based on my mate owing a couple of them and their high prices but I'm surprised by this, was it the CTEK, mains power supply or Disco 3 or 4 that caused this do you know?

  

ISTR it was the CTEKs themselves that packed up.  I can’t remember which type it was but it was up the food chain from the CTEK 5 I’ve got.  Had mine a couple of years and it has done fine. 

8 hours ago, nta16 said:

On a very modern VW like a Škoda even with a new battery leaving it for a month or a few months will do the battery some harm, even if the battery is new it's still just a power store that depletes and given enough it will effect its life if only a little.  A reason why I fully charge a brand new battery before I fit it to the car, hopefully it doesn't take much to get it fully charged (and if it is fully charged great it only takes seconds).

 

If left for a month or a few months the car may well start, and start well, and the lights seem bright enough but the battery has been affected by being left on the car without a battery charger maintainer connected.

 

Left long enough a used battery may not fully recharge, it will charge but not to full on the charger.  I've had this twice this year with neighbour's cars, one was a less than 3 year old car, the other older but without start/stop, this one even though the battery had the "water" (electrolyte) level in each cell were fine and I was able to do a quick visual check on the plates in each cell and they seemed fine.  The batteries did recharge, but not to full, and where usable on the cars, still just parked up but I'd not trust either on a a very modern VW car like a Škoda.

 

On my 2024 SE-L there's no way it would go a month without some sort of intervention, be that a run else a top-up charge.

I've been out today, did around 50 miles, and the battery now (on the Topdon meter) is showing 68% charged 'good battery'.

I've done the test a few times before and the battery is never more than 70% charged after a run - however, if I put the Ctek on overnight it'll come up to 97%.

After letting it stand for 9 days recently (locked) the state of charge was down to 32% - a little worrying I think.

 

A few months ago my Superb battery was replaced under warranty (long story on the Superb page) and since then I've been monitoring its condition. If I leave the car locked I see quite a decline in the state of charge, though if I leave it in the garage unlocked it'll lose almost nothing - after putting it on the Ctek almost a month ago it's gone from 98% down to 89%.

 

I'm sure the VW back room boys have done their sums but letting the car only charge the battery to 70% just doesn't seem right.

 

The Superb has had 2 services and my previous Karoq also had two services - on all occasions the 'advice' was that the car needed a long run to charge the battery, yeah, really?

The dealer offered to charge the battery on the Superb for £30 - thanks but no thanks, especially as it turned out the battery was a dud.

 

Just my experiences and observations on Skoda stop-start batteries.

 

Be interesting to see how that compares with your 2010 Golf (especially if start/stop).

 

Yes you hope VW have things have been calculated correctly, IIRC (which is often doubtful) I've read AGM batteries are fine at 80%(?) but then real life use can vary things a lot sometimes.

 

From what I've read, seen and experienced it's rare to have a bad new battery but on the other hand there's VW, my wife's 2015 Fabia was subject to "recall campaign(?)" 97CU which was to quote Briskoda member vgnils  - " I looked into this the other day in erWin. This is what it says:  "Technical background - For Škoda vehicles of a certain production period the energy management of the vehicle battery has been optimised.  Remedy - On the affected vehicles the onboard supply control unit must be reprogrammed (see criterions)."".

 

In the 2024 Karoq Owner's Manual it has -

 

 

so it appears a month was being too generous, and they give advice on charging amperage and to fully charge the battery. -

 

 

 

 

 

16 hours ago, Berisford said:

On my 2024 SE-L there's no way it would go a month without some sort of intervention, be that a run else a top-up charge.

I've been out today, did around 50 miles, and the battery now (on the Topdon meter) is showing 68% charged 'good battery'.

I've done the test a few times before and the battery is never more than 70% charged after a run - however, if I put the Ctek on overnight it'll come up to 97%.

After letting it stand for 9 days recently (locked) the state of charge was down to 32% - a little worrying I think.

 

Which one of their meters do you have, and what made you chose it please?

 

https://eu.topdon.com/collections/battery-tester?filter.v.price.gte=&filter.v.price.lte=&filter.p.tag=Battery+Tester&sort_by=price-ascending

38 minutes ago, nta16 said:

Be interesting to see how that compares with your 2010 Golf (especially if start/stop).

 

Yes the Golf is Stop-Start - I replaced the original battery 4 years ago - Bosch AGM 760 amp EN - just had to Topdon meter on it and it shows 98% charged with 12.65v - the SoH is a bit low at 59%.

Considering I don't use it for anything other than local pottering about I think it's doing OK........

 

13 minutes ago, JohnArm said:

Which one of their meters do you have, and what made you chose it please?

 

https://eu.topdon.com/collections/battery-tester?filter.v.price.gte=&filter.v.price.lte=&filter.p.tag=Battery+Tester&sort_by=price-ascending

It's only the cheapest one they did at the time (2019), Topdon 101 - the nearest equivalent on your link page would be the BT50.....

I bought it on the recommendation of my Indie spanner monkey - he used a all singing all dancing Topdon and was happy to recommend the brand.

I'm sure my humble bottom of the range device may well be less accurate than some but it gives me a good indication as to the battery state. 

I have a Chinese one the equivalent of the BT200 but it was a fraction of the price, in the teens of €uros I recall.

 

The important thing to have is the ability to tell the machine the batteries rated capacity in all the various formats that the manufacturers give be it CCA, DIN, JIS, EN, IEC, GB, SAE, MCA, BCI or CA.

 

The battery you test will have a CCA rating written on it but unless you know the testing regime they used to get that figure the tester will not give the correct result.

 

I do not rely on the 45%, 65% etc "life remaining" as it is meaningless, I tested a 780ah quite knackered battery recently it came up as either 45% or 55% cant recall which, of far more relevance was the 520ah CCA, that meant something to me, I knew I could fit it to a car that only needed a 520ah battery and it would crank it like a brand new (520ah) battery, knowing that I had fitted the larger 060 battery to my vehicle over the factory fitted 047 520ah would have worked just fine but lost me the reserve I had invested in.

 

How much further and how fast the deterioration from 520ah would be is guesswork.

 

Have a look on Ali-Express, Temu etc.

50 minutes ago, Berisford said:

Yes the Golf is Stop-Start - I replaced the original battery 4 years ago - Bosch AGM 760 amp EN - just had to Topdon meter on it and it shows 98% charged with 12.65v - the SoH is a bit low at 59%.

Considering I don't use it for anything other than local pottering about I think it's doing OK........

 

That sounds like you bought the same Varta(?) (Tosch) labelled battery as I put on my wife's 2015 Fabia, did you 'code' it to the car for AGM? 

 

Some find it hard to believe how draining frequent short journeys can be on the battery but they also possibly can't understand why their home electric bills are so high, I think a coin (not card) slot-meter for the car's battery would teach some particularly pampered children not used to paying for such stuff. 😁

 

I don't now have access to my former neighbour's TopDon scanner and Ring charger and analyser but from experience of decades of living around old people I know that a creaking gate can hang for a very long time or whatever the saying is, I'd take the SOH numbers as a guide only a comparison from previous readings, set to the correct  battery spec of course.  Keeping the battery from getting too low in charge and if required occasional preventative recharging of the battery with an appropriate charger maintainer (following the instructions in the Owner's Manual and for the charger maintainer) if the car isn't getting sufficient driving use will keep its health reasonable for as long as possible.

 

Even with the PITA VW systems I've found I have very, very little to do very occasionally and it's clean hands work with the tools doing all the stuff in whatever weather whilst I do any other than the what is to me loathsome PITA farting about with a car.  I've no idea how long the battery will last on my wife's Fabia but my aim is to so it go with the car and do as little as practically possible to both until then, but they will be more than nothing of course.

 

As I used to use various  "classic" cars as my daily use and for work use vehicles for 30+ years having a car that started was very important, if it would start then very often (certainly not always) what other problems with the car I could limp it home and worry about it in the warm and dry, as batteries used to be called starter batteries these were always important to me and that they were in good condition and connection to help start, get home, and diagnosis some issues.

 

Edited 2 September, 20241 yr by nta16
missing words

6 minutes ago, nta16 said:

That sounds like you bought the same Varta(?) (Tosch) labelled battery as I put on my wife's 2015 Fabia, did you 'code' it to the car for AGM? 

Can't recall the exact circumstances but the 'coding' exercise on the VCDS was quite basic. not the procedure I had expected, with the QR code on the battery giving very little away - the Golf is 2010.

9 minutes ago, nta16 said:

I don't now have access to my former neighbour's TopDon scanner and Ring charger and analyser

 

Poor bloke having to move to get some peace 😆

 

I bet the others have a neighbourhood watch Whatsapp group going where they ask to see if its safe for them to open their bonnet to check their oil.

 

Even the AA man was badgered doing his job.

4 minutes ago, Berisford said:

Can't recall the exact circumstances but the 'coding' exercise on the VCDS was quite basic. not the procedure I had expected, with the QR code on the battery giving very little away - the Golf is 2010.

The VW battery info stuff was about VW stats, and probably being able to blame the battery manufacturers for some VW balls-ups that stuff is redundant now and not on the batteries.

 

Yeap the 'coding' is basic just getting the capacity (ah) correct or at leas very close, battery manufacturer means nothing now, serial number was a joke as seen from factory below my wife's battery and others that have reported on here were all "1111111111" so just changing the last digit was enough to show a new battery, most important was the type of battery, EFB  or AGM (know as "fleece/Fleece" to VW.

 

 

varoom made the attached pdf freely available to those that want it for VCDS  battery 'coding'. -

VCDS How to adapt a new battery.pdf