I knew I shouldn't have been smug about my Octavia's battery.

It had been completely reliable in all conditions, including stop/start at times.

Drove it yesterday, fine.

Then this morning, parked outside the house, the alarm goes off, can't be stopped, and the keys won't function.

The flashers were a dim orange.

(It was confusing because there was a road maintenance lorry parked in front of it with its orange flashers on...

I thought I was seeing a reflection until it pulled away and the weak orange flashing carried on.)

I'm presuming the battery just suddenly died.

I think it might have been the original, which (11 years, 11000 miles) is pretty good going.

I'm hoping I can get in with the key in the passenger door.

Local garage have ordered a new battery.

Any thoughts or suggestions appreciated.

I "retired" the EFB battery in my wife's 2015 VW Polo yesterday, really it was not (yet) causing me any big problems, but, as I have a 12V DC digital voltmeter thing plugged into the 12V DC Power socket, I could see that it was taking a very long journey before the indicated voltage was dropping down from 14.89V, so, as I had prepared for an early failure back in maybe late 2022, I considered that I'd be very silly if I waited until I had a problem with the original 59Ah EFB, and going by the chatter on many VW Group owners forums, it sounded a lot like that original EFB was slightly undersized and also not going to last much beyond the 7 year mark.

So a few years ago, I bought a 70Ah AGM battery and have kept it "topped up" every 3 months while it was waiting to get used.

For that car, annoyingly, I also needed to replace the battery tray and the thermal blanket, so now everything has been fitted to the car along with coding the battery management system to suit that change.

I have never ever been in the situation where I felt that the battery capacity was really a bit low for that car and the way that we use it, so based on that experience, I'm sure that I've just wasted the extra money buying the next size up battery, tray and thermal blanket. Changing from EFB to AGM was also, for me unnecessary, but it has now been done!

That was just my experiences nothing more.

Thanks for the experiences - useful.

Batterys do die. Typically, 7-8 years on an original Skoda battery is fairly good going.

I hope a 096 AFM rated at 70Ah battery will fix things for you. Don't forget to code in the battery!

@nta16

Battery degradation is usually a slow process - sulphation, plate material loss, etc - but can gradually build up to the point where a sudden failure occurs, especially with a sudden change in ambient temperatures.

Well, being a tech idiot, I got our lovely local garage to order a battery and come out the 150 metres & fit it.

Good job they did, because I was just about to wreck the nearside front door handle trying to get to a non-existent real lock. Turns out that (against what I had been told) the real lock is where it ought to be - in the driver's side under the little clip-on cover. Then of course we still couldn't open the passenger door to undo the bonnet lever... but it's just about possible to open it with the door shut. Just.

New battery installed, and everything sprang back to life. Phew.

1 hour ago, pingpongpete1 said:

Well, being a tech idiot, I got our lovely local garage to order a battery and come out the 150 metres & fit it.

Good job they did, because I was just about to wreck the nearside front door handle trying to get to a non-existent real lock. Turns out that (against what I had been told) the real lock is where it ought to be - in the driver's side under the little clip-on cover. Then of course we still couldn't open the passenger door to undo the bonnet lever... but it's just about possible to open it with the door shut. Just.

New battery installed, and everything sprang back to life. Phew.

Did your garage adapt (code) your new battery into the vehicles BMS?

I have to take it in where they have the gear to do that.

11 years is really good going for a battery and was clearly at the end of its life.

Mine failed at about 7 when it just started the car one morning at -2°C. I went straight away for a replacement new one from a nearby ATS.

It seemed expensive but then it was a big battery for a diesel auto with stop-start. It's been first class. 🤞🏻