I did a test on mine today with a Topdon battery tester. My car is a diesel vRS 2.5 years old and 75,000 miles.

The test result ( attached) doesn’t look promising .

Do i have symptoms? Kind of. Mostly the odd low voltage code but it seems to crank strong enough ( even on a frosty morning) and the start stop works flawlessly. I was hoovering the car out the other day with doors open for about 20 mins and the crank did seem a little low afterwards with a tyre pressure monitor fault briefly flashing up on the screen.

Should it be replaced? 2.5 years doesn’t seem long but my car probably has more extreme usage than most.

Anyone else changed your batteries prematurely?

Buy yourself a CTEK MXS 5.0 Battery Charger

Run it on the Recond option.

Brought my battery back to life after suffering similar issues to your own, and it's worked flawlessly since

38% health while SOC at >95% is pretty low and tends to suggest your battery is suffering from hard sulphation - which will probably not be fully reversible.

Internal res looks OK.

A recovery charge programme may help, but approaching winter could well finish it off.

1 hour ago, scotthugh3s said:

Buy yourself a CTEK MXS 5.0 Battery Charger

Run it on the Recond option.

Brought my battery back to life after suffering similar issues to your own, and it's worked flawlessly since

I have used a smart charger a few times. Didn’t make any difference, offen says the battery is full after only 30-40 mins.

11 minutes ago, Warrior193 said:

38% health while SOC at >95% is pretty low and tends to suggest your battery is suffering from hard sulphation - which will probably not be fully reversible.

Internal res looks OK.

A recovery charge programme may help, but approaching winter could well finish it off.

Resistance not a little high? For comparison i tested the same battery in a friends car but a year older. His read over 600 amps and a resistance of 3.7 millohms.

From memory, anything below 8 mOhms is ok.

5 hours ago, Micky 32 said:

I have used a smart charger a few times. Didn’t make any difference, offen says the battery is full after only 30-40 mins.

The CTEK worked wonders for me. The Recond mode gave my battery a completely new lease of life

1 hour ago, scotthugh3s said:

The CTEK worked wonders for me. The Recond mode gave my battery a completely new lease of life

I might get one for experimental purposes to see what happens but i suspect my battery is quite worn. According to OBD11 the starter has been activated 25,000 times and total energy throughput 14,000ah.

What was happening with your battery and how old? Did it last much longer?

18 minutes ago, Micky 32 said:

I might get one for experimental purposes to see what happens but i suspect my battery is quite worn. According to OBD11 the starter has been activated 25,000 times and total energy throughput 14,000ah.

What was happening with your battery and how old? Did it last much longer?

My battery almost died at around 4 years old, set off a flood of warning lights, all of which I could clear using OBD11 barring one, the airbag light, which needed the module software updating to remedy that.

Tried simply charging it using the CTEK first of all, and whilst on paper (so to speak) that brought it back up to voltage, it still seemed to under perform, start / stop never functioning, the odd random warning light etc

So I tried the Recond mode and ever since it's worked almost flawlessly. Start / stop functions as it should and warning lights are a thing of the past (touch wood)

Now I hook it up on a trickle if I'm ever plugging OBD11 in for any reason, other than that I intend to use the Recond mode once a year, as is suggested by CTEK.

I still have the battery in question, this happened almost a year ago now

Edited 34 minutes ago34 min by scotthugh3s

We run a 2024 Karoq and a 2022 Superb, both fitted with OEM VW EFD 720amp batteries - the Superb was duff from the off, Topdon showing 'replace' almost from new - after 2 AA recoveries and a battle with the dealer/Skoda (10 days in workshop) they replaced it with another of the same but the problems didn't go away, it seems to like SoC 55% after a long run and so needs Ctek charging if left standing unlocked for more than 8 days - the Topdon very occasionally shows 'good battery' but most of the time 'replace'.

The Karoq has been a little more reliable but again, Topdon 'replace' is normal and SoC only ever goes above 70% if I do a Ctek charge.

I bought a Bosch AGM and keep it topped up ready for the inevitable - I'm not going through the palaver with the dealer again.

VW branded Varta 720amp DIN oem batteries are junk.......?