Battery Life

Just replaced my battery at 38,000 miles.
So the current life for the battery is 3 years, since my Passat is 2012. I think it's on low side. I live in warm climate, N.VA.
I was expecting little longer. I think one part of the short life is the DPF filter cycles, many times I don't have time to wait when cleaning cycle is over, so I run for few minutes on parking lot than turn off the engine, but fan is still running, that is maybe killing the battery.

I have a 09 JSW with the same OEM battery going strong. I'm frankly surprised it is still fine. Most VWs get 4 or 5yrs unless in the deep south or SW,with heat doing them in.

I doubt the regens would hurt the battery. Engine should build back the charge with normal driving ,unless you don't drive any long trips. Try using a charger to get it back to full charge and see what happens.

Most automotive batteries have a life of 5 years (at least). Anything more than that is gravy!

2012 Passat with almost 80K and the battery is still fine. My 2000 Jetta eats them every 2 years!

BPofMD said:

Most automotive batteries have a life of 5 years (at least). Anything more than that is gravy!

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In my 45 years of driving, I would offer that, pre-electronics, and pre-"electric everything" on cars for the last 10+ years, yes, 5 years was the norm.

With all cars being real electricity hogs, I'd wager the average now is closer to 3 years than 5 years. Purely an opinion, though.

Heat kills ... I still run into people who remember those old Sears DieHard commercials and think the opposite.

They say the car will really eat up those expensive gel cell batteries (Optima? etc)

Just be glad we don't own a BMW N36 V8 engine.

http://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/buying-maintenance/a25710/enginerdy-strange-connections-bmw-n63-v8/

I changed mine in March of this year. When I got to my car after a flight the car turned over very slow but it started. I drive it 90 miles to the house. The next morning it was the same thing. Sluggish start. That's when I replaced it. It's been fine ever since. I don't believe in limping batteries along.

5 years on my Jetta OEM, Had a few iffy starts and it wasn't worth getting stuck. One time a friend borrowed the car and thought it had Auto headlights. I went to get in the car the next day and the locks wouldn't open, stone dead. Took a long time to jump since it requires quite a bit to turn over. These aren't deep cycle batteries so the don't recover well if you run them down like that often.

Let me revise my 5 year comment..... it's average of 5 years AFTER the replacement of the OEM battery!

Only thing make me happy is easy to replace, and didn't cost a fortune.
I paid just 100 bucks for EXIDE. I think it was L3/48

My fathers 8 year Passat still on it's original battery. A friend has a 83 mk1 Jetta and the battery is 19 years old and still starts the car perfectly lol, think it's a sealed Delco.

im a AGM fan, but like oil everyone has a opinion on batteries
I stuck one of these in my Toyota just before Y2K and its still in there going strong as ever The sears diehards are made by enersys- same company who makes aviation batteries.
http://www.sears.com/diehard-advanced-gold-agm-battery-group-size-48/p-02850748000P
There have been past threads talking about the quality of the lead used in the OEM battery causing its short life

My car came out of the factory with an AGM. Be interesting to see if they last longer. 2.5 years and 70k still going.

The last few days my 2013 with 68K showing started to get slow to turn over. I was going to put it on a trickle charger but it was raining and this car sits out at night so I didn't. The next day it was slower again but raining still so no charge. Then this morning I woke up to find it too dead to turn over at all.

I grabbed a 125A starter charger and it fired right up. So I drove my 30 mile commute to work thinking that would charge it enough to start at lunch but it didn't. I got a boost but it took 15 minutes with the other car running to turn over the TDI engine. Off to Advanced auto where they put it on a gauge and said the battery was discharged but not "bad". So I had to have a battery and it would not start again even with their power pack booster battery connected so I bought a H6 AGM from Advance. I did not however turn in my old battery for the $20 core charge. Instead I took it home and put it on a Battery minder when it has been running for 6-7 hours now and its showing fine now.

So maybe it wasn't bad just dead from something unknown. The lights are automatic so I don't think there is anything in the car to discharge it and as much as I drive I would have thought the long weekly trips would have kept it topped off.

Ill keep the old battery on the charger for a few days then take it in for load testing. I do know those high CCA batteries are not cheap. This AGM was $159 with a 36 mos replacement warranty.

mickyTDI said:

My fathers 8 year Passat still on it's original battery. A friend has a 83 mk1 Jetta and the battery is 19 years old and still starts the car perfectly lol, think it's a sealed Delco.

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Neither of the above cars are the electric hogs of most modern cars, so your example of battery longevity isn't exactly analogous.

tdiatlast said:

Neither of the above cars are the electric hogs of most modern cars, so your example of battery longevity isn't exactly analogous.

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Yeah, I don't know but a couple of months back the battery in my 2014 Passat puked while I was walking my dog in the park a couple of miles from home. A fellow dog walker with jumper cables with a GM sometin' or other with a V6 couldn't get me goin' I called VW roadside service. They sent out a tow. This was a Sunday evening about 6pm. They took the car to the dealer. The next day I called to find out whatever and the diagnosis was a failed battery and they replaced it under warranty no questions asked. Short story long.

...there will always be defective batteries being manufactured, but of course, you already know that.

tdiatlast said:

...there will always be defective batteries being manufactured, but of course, you already know that.

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Exactly, the same with every other manufactured item we surround ourselves with through out life. I wasn't complaining just relating my experience with the others here. Really glad it failed under warranty. I will see how long the replacement lasts. Only time will tell if the newer power hog cars are battery killers.

Just had to replace the battery in my 2013 a couple of weeks ago at just over 40,000 miles....

tdiatlast said:

Neither of the above cars are the electric hogs of most modern cars, so your example of battery longevity isn't exactly analogous.

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Well that would be the case alright if you sit in your car all day with all the modern electric hogs on when the engine isn't running. Alternators in modern cars are more powerful to cope with the electric demands of modern cars. The alernator does most of the work not the battery so how does it affect longevity? I'm sceptical of the above statement but i'd like to hear why i could be wrong.

Also i wouldn't think the B7 is much more demanding than a B6 on electrics.

May be the alternator is smaller size (Amps hours) than it should be for this car?

We have Escalade and some people are installing second battery, because most Esky batteries are in three years. GM trucks has spot/try to install second battery.

What is a good battery to get for this cars?

I got an Interstate replacement for mine back in the spring (3 1/2 years) at 65K miles.

tdiatlast said:

Neither of the above cars are the electric hogs of most modern cars, so your example of battery longevity isn't exactly analogous.

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I couldn't find that thread we had going a couple years back when we added up all the electoral loads on the NMS- bold are modern car additions!
Glow plugs, seats, 1k watt aux heater, ad blue, power steering, DRL's, mirrors, lift pump, exhaust flap, im sure im missing some... needless to say when my wife backs out of the garage on a cold winter day and turns that stuff on full I watch the lights dim as she turns the wheel with the electric power steering.

ben2mx said:

What is a good battery to get for this cars?

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I plan to pick up one of these:
http://www.sears.com/diehard-advanced-gold-agm-battery-group-size-48/p-02850748000P

you know, come to think of it even that old golf in my sig link below had a huge group 65 in it... hmm

I recently purchased a 2012 SE Passat TDI. I took to it to my favorite import car independent, for a prepurchase inspection. The codes came up clean, except for "Low Voltage" flags being thrown out by 2 or 3 different modules. The technician suggested that a new battery would be a good idea.

The car needed fresh rubber and alignment, window tinting etc, so the battery went to the bottom of the priority list. My thinking was the codes were thrown from sittting around at the auction/lot time.

I ordered a Ross Tech CAN Cable after i had a warning light on the dash, during a 500 mile road trip.
The code was related to the Nox sensor. I cleared the code and moved on, but many of the modules in the car were reporting "Low Voltage". So much for the sitting around the car lot theory.

I went to my local walmart and picked up a replacement, which was promptly installed.

I have since checked the CAN buss, and the report has consitently come up clean.

I believe one needs to look beyond the battery's ability to crank the car. These modern CAN bus modules like clean, proper voltage.

For what it's worth...

jrm said:

I plan to pick up one of these:
http://www.sears.com/diehard-advanced-gold-agm-battery-group-size-48/p-02850748000P

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That battery is made by East-Penn Deka. You can get the same battery rebranded at Autozone, etc. I had a group 41/H8 in my old Passat.

your right, it looks like sears dropped enersys- most likely when they went away from the platinum line, o'well the good ones are still available on amazon- here is the manufacture link:
http://shop.odysseybattery.com/p/pc1220-a
that Odyssey is expensive, look at the casing- its the same as this one:
http://www.amazon.com/ACDelco-48AGM...9702548&sr=8-1-fkmr2&keywords=optima+group+48