Battery - which is best (regardless of cost)?

[dr_mat 0]

Brilliant battery. I was at stealth doing some wiring and we must have cranked it over 25 times with no fire up and it took it in it's stride.

 

Quite right too. A fully charged battery should be able to crank the engine for 20 minutes or so (with enough of a breather every 10 seconds or so to stop it exploding .. :) ).

 

Trouble with these Corrados is if you don't use them everyday for at least 30 minutes the charge level drops steadily over the weeks with it not quite being fully recharged, then wham you leave it 3 days and it's dead.. :(

[vr6dom 0]

Hmm. Looks like the Bosch Silver on my VR6 needs replacing... been solid for 5yrs so won't moan. Sure it would have lasted longer were it not for the Alpine Sat Nav + Amp...

 

Any VR owners with a few toys fitted opted for anything in particular recently? Since a new Bosch Silver is now £86... might try something else. Remember my OE battery back in '95 was a Varta... Varta Silver Dynamic reads well... anyone running one of those?

 

TIA

 

Dom

[_leon_ 0]

Hmm. Looks like the Bosch Silver on my VR6 needs replacing... been solid for 5yrs so won't moan. Sure it would have lasted longer were it not for the Alpine Sat Nav + Amp...

 

Any VR owners with a few toys fitted opted for anything in particular recently? Since a new Bosch Silver is now £86... might try something else. Remember my OE battery back in '95 was a Varta... Varta Silver Dynamic reads well... anyone running one of those?

 

TIA

 

Dom

 

Hi Dom - I've got an Odyssey PC1200 for sale at present. Its what cheesewire (Kev) recommended and uses. A true fit and forget item. Granted its a little bit more - but you get what you pay for!

[vr6dom 0]

Hmm. Looks like the Bosch Silver on my VR6 needs replacing... been solid for 5yrs so won't moan. Sure it would have lasted longer were it not for the Alpine Sat Nav + Amp...

 

Any VR owners with a few toys fitted opted for anything in particular recently? Since a new Bosch Silver is now £86... might try something else. Remember my OE battery back in '95 was a Varta... Varta Silver Dynamic reads well... anyone running one of those?

 

TIA

 

Dom

 

Hi Dom - I've got an Odyssey PC1200 for sale at present. Its what cheesewire (Kev) recommended and uses. A true fit and forget item. Granted its a little bit more - but you get what you pay for!

 

Thanks for the offer, but seems there is life still in the old Bosch Silver. It was fully charged... it's the starter motor that's the issue :roll:

[dr_mat 0]

.. a flat battery is almost never a dead battery ..

 

A flat battery that won't charge or that charges but won't hold it is a dead battery .. !

[Andy T 0]

A wise AA man told me yesterday that a battery must maintain at least 12.2 volts to be holding charge properly, any lower and it's knackered.

[dr_mat 0]

A wise AA man told me yesterday that a battery must maintain at least 12.2 volts to be holding charge properly, any lower and it's knackered.

 

A fully charged battery should produce 12.6 volts. 12.2 means it's only about 65% charged they will drop to 11.6 volts or so when they're about empty. Any lower than that and likely you have a dry cell and the battery is in trouble. It's important to remember that a good but discharged battery will still start the car even when it's showing only 11.8 volts or so..

 

Of course, a battery that has been on charge and still won't produce 12.2 volts (after a rest time) is probably a gonner.

[davidwort 0]

dunno who made the VW one on my mk4, the only name I can see bar the 1J0 part number is 'TUDOR ES', it's a 60Ah and has been excellent, it's 7 years old done 100K miles and is strong as ever, I've had two bosch silvers on the Corrado and a Hella in the same time span and all three have been bigger, higher Ah ones.

The Corrado takes about 0.01A drain even when the alarm isn't set, which seems enough to drain it beyond starting the car in a couple of weeks.

[Alexander 0]

Just to revive this - got a problem with my '91 G60 suffering battery drain. I usually drive 2 x 30mins journeys every day, but a couple of weeks ago decided to start using the gf's polo to commute instead. Corrado was sat on the drive for three days, and the battery was totally dead.

 

It has the uprated headlight loom and a Toad AI606 alarm, there's also some power cable coming from the battery for an amp in the boot, although I removed the amp when I bought the car. Are any of these likely candidates for a drain on the system, or what else should I be checking?

[KipVR 1]

Check with a meter how much current is being drawn when the car is off. Then one by one unplug fuses in your car and put them back in again ,see if the current drops each time you do it and you may be able to pinpoint a particular area. It's a good starting point. Check the battery over too though, give it a good trickle charge and leave it disconnected for a couple of days to see if it has held it's charge. A really simple way to see if the car is drawing a lot of current if to see if you have a big spark when you reconnect your charged battery.