Had the AA turn out, within 15 mins yesterday (very impressed for Xmas Eve!!). They found the 70ah battery was not holding charge. However after a few phone calls and checks in handbooks this 70ah appears to be a bigger battery to what they expected. It has been suggested that I can use a 62ah (used in commercial veh's) to keep me going over the holiday period as the battery will probably be flat overnight and there was nowhere to get a 70ah replacment at all.

So ... Can anyone tell me what difference this will make. Will there be a problem if I do fit it and I drive into a retailer in the new year and ask them to change the faulty one I will have in the boot?

thanks and Merry Xmas too

It ought to do for now, as it is a new battery.

Worth checking the handbook for the correct rating

thanks WW-VRS all seems to be working. Only had the car 6 months and its a shame about the speeding ticket and the **** who put a couple of scratches in it. Ah well could have happened in any car, says a lot as I can put up with these as I really love this car, its as good as everyone has said.

And this site has been excellent whenever I have needed to search anything its normally there (once I work out the best way to do the seach without too many answers lol) .

You're only a touch over 10% down on capacity, it'll most likely be fine. I know it sounds irrelevant, but on my Yank mobile there's a cheat me (and a few others I know) use to get the often difficult to obtain side post batteries used on many American cars, that is to go down to the local Vauxhall dealer and but the one for the Vauxhall Sintra. If you compare all the figures (Cold Cranking Amps, Capacity etc.) technically the Vauxhall one isn't big enough - and yet in over three years the battery has not given any trouble, despite the car often being left for over two weks between use. I have had to charge it once or twice, but when the car is used frequently it never gives any grief.

I'd say you're probably okay for the long term with the battery, but if you need an early replacement (i.e. under warranty) then they may refuxe it if they know you've used it in place of a bigger application.

The main reason for going for the biggest one that fits is to get some spare capacity and to get nowhere near the max current the battery can supply without damage.

Petrols aren't generally too bad with this, whereas diesels demand a lot more from their batteries during cold starts in a properly cold winter (lots of glow-plug current + very hard to get the engine turned over due to cold oil etc).

As long as you drive you car for reasonable distances most of the time, the battery will be charged sufficiently to always have a decent spare capacity left.

It should last at least a few years, and I don't trust any batteries older than 5 years. If a normal battery has been deep-discharged, i.e. properly flat, chances are it will be damaged & at that point I'd start looking into getting a replacement one pretty sharpish

Wouldn't worry about this one though