2015 GSW Car Battery replacemnt

So 2 weeks into the purchase, and dead battery. Im sure that there will be ALOT of dead batteries very soon since the vechicals have been off the road for over a year
Symptoms:
3 previous starts were slow and the last one almost didn't turn over, when it did start, while driving the engine seemed to be bogged down i thought it was the AC since it was 96 degrees outside, i should have taken the clue on the last one. When the engine doesn't turn over the dash lights go nuts and clicking of all the relays is a un-sobering sound, if you have the push to start button things get a little complicated, the car is either On or Off theres no in-between it will try and complete a start which takes 2-3 seconds and the clicking will stop after that time, dont panic and push the button again like i did or it goes thru another cycle.
1) since you tried to start the engine the car now On, you need to turn off the car by holding down the start button for 3 sec or double push the On/Off button, if you have a stick DO NOT push in the clutch.
2) now try and get a jump or try again after 5 min but make sure you are in the Off state, while you wait your radio should say don't forget your phone. IF THE RADIO IS ON, and there lights on the dash THE CAR IS STILL ON.
Now for the fun part: went to AutoZone and asked for a battery for the car, and wow $160.00 great.. plus the salesman says. According to the computer you car ECU needs to be reset... THIS IS NOT TRUE

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PLEASE PRACTICE SPECIAL CARE IN SAFTEY AS THERE ARE SOME KEY POINTS TO KEEP IN MIND.
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whats needed.
New Battery, this can be done by one person 10mm socket for the terminals and 13 mm socket for the bracket
1) unbolt and remove terminals from battery and put the terminals in a location that will not make accidental contact.
2) remove battery hold down bracket
3) slide the battery to the front about 1-2 inches until it stops
4) clean (rinse) the wrap (If the wrap has white crystals on it, i would replace the wrap)
5) rewrap the new battery with the battery sleeve from the old battery
6) -not needed but is good to do when you have time--make a solution of hot water and baking soda i put 1-2 cups in a gallon container and stirred unit the soda was completely disolved -if you have heavy contamination of green or white dusting in the tray or on surrounding components in the battery area wipe or remove as much as possibe before dousing with the solution. pour generously the solution over any areas that looks like it has any battery acid residue it will bubble up vigorously in areas that have the crystalized acid deposits (pretty cool reaction), pour a little wait and re-por until no reaction occurs. (DO NOT POUR OVER BATTERY)
7) now orientate the battery with the negative terminal to the rear and put the battery with the sleeve back in the forward position, once its in position slide it back it should lock in the rear now.
9) put the front bracket back on the battery and tighten (AGAIN WATCH YOUR TOOL AND THE POSITIVE TERMINAL)
8) put the loose terminals back on the battery, tighten
if you had problems starting your car and it didn't start you will get a low voltage fault and i think this is the reason the stores say you have to take the car in for service center. if you cannot clear the fault yourself than you will need to go in to have the fault cleared. i encountered no issues with the fault active.

Curious, why not bring it to the dealer?

Wow, that procedure is not for me. Is this a new issue on the mk7? I've never had any problems as a result of disconnecting the battery on my mk6.

Dealer was closed after 6

lriddick said:

Dealer was closed after 6

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All that blood sweat & tears and money because you couldn't wait for VW roadside service to tow the car in for warranty repair in the morning. If I absolutely had to have a car to drive I would have rented a car for a day (that would have been less expensive than a new battery) before I went through what you just explained.

I believe all the stop sale vehicles were to undergo work dictated by a service bulletin before being sold. That included a new battery, set of tires, new oil filter and oil, and new fuel filter. Someone posted an excerpt a few weeks ago. If your battery is/was dead the dealer would most likely help you out

Not really a side bar, but was the closed transitioning of battery power necessary in order to avoid on Ecu reset? Anyone with a service manual care to advise proper battery changing procedure for the mk7 tdi's. I too was not aware of any special procedures for changing the battery. If there is one I would love to see a snip from the Bentley if one of you could be so kind.

And this is why I fought our dealer for a new battery before we picked up the '15 Passat. When we signed for the car and did an inspection after they "prepped" it, old dusty battery still in the engine bay. I wasn't going to have the wife deal with a flat battery after work after dealer is closed. They jumped up and down stating the battery "tested" fine any they didn't have to replace it, same with the brakes, and thus VWoA wouldn't pay up for a new battery, even thou the dealer performs the inspection and submits to VWoA what was needed to be replaced. After about 5 min they "good willed" the battery and "comped" me the $200 they charge to swap batteries and acted like they did me a huge favor.

FYI the battery is only $130 at the dealer, and I've swapped multiple times on the old 2010 jetta and the 2012 Passat, no ECU reset, but granted these weren't KESSY rides.

Also when removing any battery, always undo the negative terminal first, if you touch any thing other than the positive terminal it wont arc, pull the terminal lead away isolate it and then remove the negative terminal, even if the wrench touches anything there's no path to the negative terminal and it wont arc.

Reverse is true when installing, negative terminal first then positive terminal last.

Battery replacement adaptation link

My stop sale purchase had all the above completed on it. First thing I noticed was the new battery under the hood. The tech that replaced it never closed the lid on the battery cover.


http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/Battery_Replacement

This is what I found in the vcds wiki for battery replace procedure. Seems the Ecu monitors the battery in order to optimally maintain it. Upon battery replacement you must reset the previously stored battery data in order for the Ecu to adapt to the new battery. During my cursory review I did not see where it states it is absolutely necessary, but my assumption is that the optimal life of the battery will be obtained by doing this with vcds. Absent vcds access I am fairly confident forgoing the reset will not cause any harm to your car.

The battery in my stop sale GSW died the second day I had it. When I went to jump it, I found a conductance tester print out from Feb 17 giving test results & recommendation to replace battery. After charing it, I conductance tested, with the same results. I provided both to the dealer, no questions asked new battery provided. It was apparent the dealer did not replace. With that learned information, it reaffirmed to me to never, never, never trust a car dealer, especially a VW dealer.

Trust but verify!

Bob S. said:

The battery in my stop sale GSW died the second day I had it. When I went to jump it, I found a conductance tester print out from Feb 17 giving test results & recommendation to replace battery. After charing it, I conductance tested, with the same results. I provided both to the dealer, no questions asked new battery provided. It was apparent the dealer did not replace. With that learned information, it reaffirmed to me to never, never, never trust a car dealer, especially a VW dealer.

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740GLE said:

Trust but verify!

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So True. Thats why I also did the oil & fuel filter, etc.

My sense is that many of the dealers charged VW for work on the stop sale cars that VW recommended but was not done.

Shocking, that at dealer would pad their service shop bottom line on VWoA dime. Its not like the dealers also got a bail out from VWoA too.

I'm prob 75% sure the dealer didn't touch the oil filter on our '15, but I figured it won't hurt it too much, we'll be doing the 10K by December or so.

740GLE said:

Shocking, that at dealer would pad their service shop bottom line on VWoA dime. Its not like the dealers also got a bail out from VWoA too.

I'm prob 75% sure the dealer didn't touch the oil filter on our '15, but I figured it won't hurt it too much, we'll be doing the 10K by December or so.

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Did you doing the fuel filter?

Haven't touched the filter, I may check the fasteners after they perform the 10K and change it out.

Seeing the car had 60 miles when we picked it up, other than old fuel, can't imagine the filter sucked too much junk up.

Bob S. said:

So True. Thats why I also did the oil & fuel filter, etc.

My sense is that many of the dealers charged VW for work on the stop sale cars that VW recommended but was not done.

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I did oil service on mine as soon as I got home as well. I mentioned it previously, but I also planned to replace my cabin filter and noticed it had a Jan 2017 manufacturer date, so my dealer actually did their job, and I put the new cabin filter in my Mk7 GTI instead.

I just went out and tried to easily find a manufacture date on my battery, but nothing is visible on top. Anyone know if there's a date stamped on sides or bottom? I don't want to disconnect for nothing.

I thought should be on top, some place in between the terminals.

The dust was the dead give away for me, even with the blanket tucked over the top, dust still made its way under and was covering the top and the terminals.

Unless its sparking clean, it didn't get touched.

740GLE said:

I thought should be on top, some place in between the terminals.

The dust was the dead give away for me, even with the blanket tucked over the top, dust still made its way under and was covering the top and the terminals.

Unless its sparking clean, it didn't get touched.

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Mine is sparkling clean.

Are you suggesting that you'd have to do this any time you remove the battery cables?

I replaced my steering wheel and undid the negative battery terminal on two different occasions - didn't have any need to reset anything when I hooked it back up. Same impact (negligible) as if I'd done same on my Mk4 cars.

CORRECTION to Posting and Battery change

Hi Everyone
So since i was able to clear the fault codes which was low voltage, and i forgot to install the battery wrap that i would try and do the battery change without keeping the car charged at the same time. Also when i changed the battery i noticed some white dust in the tray and wanted to clean out the residue with a baking soda and water mixture. So in short i had the battery off and no power to the vehicle for over 2 hours to allow the solution to neutralize and rinse off, the battery was completely disconnected the entire time, no other voltage source was provided. after installing the battery back in and started the car i had 2 errors on the screen (esp, and tire pressure sensor) so having some experience with ESP systems, the unit needs to see a drive off or the vehicle so drive off and reach a MPH of at least 25-30 MPH and the ABS unit will quickly enable the motor on the ABS unit to wake up (believe it or not that happens almost ever time you start and drive off). So in all replace the battery as usual and reset your TPMS and thats it. if you have a fault that does not clear and you had a bad battery it is most likely a low voltage fault. Ill try and fix the first post

PD Rig said:

My stop sale purchase had all the above completed on it. First thing I noticed was the new battery under the hood. The tech that replaced it never closed the lid on the battery cover.
http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index.php/Battery_Replacement
This is what I found in the vcds wiki for battery replace procedure. Seems the Ecu monitors the battery in order to optimally maintain it. Upon battery replacement you must reset the previously stored battery data in order for the Ecu to adapt to the new battery. During my cursory review I did not see where it states it is absolutely necessary, but my assumption is that the optimal life of the battery will be obtained by doing this with vcds. Absent vcds access I am fairly confident forgoing the reset will not cause any harm to your car.

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Now this is something i never thought about, if there is a battery management system then, this is going to be more of an issue. if the managment system thinks the battery is an older battery then the software will cause the alternator to produce a more aggressive charge to the battery because it was never reset to a new battery causing damage to the new battery. if this is true that sucks i need a VAG com to change the settings now.. so much for a easy battery change.. the owners manual doesn't mention anything about this

I wouldn't worry too much about it. Doing the vcds adaptation probably only adds a week or two of useful service life.

Agreed. Not necessary. Just posted up the vcds wiki because the auto parts store said an Ecu reset is in order. That is the procedure if you want to do it. I wouldn't lose any sleep over it if you have not done the battery adaptation.

I drained my battery a few weeks back accidentally when I checked my Scangauge II after I had shut the car off. I jumped it the next day and never did any battery adaptation procedure. It did trigger dozens (not exaggerating) of codes for low voltage that I had to clear with VCDS to make the CEL turn off.