2015 Beetle BEM (AGM vs. FLA)

Baumeister

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 19, 2004
Location
Auburn, CA
TDI
'15 Beetle Convertible, '03 New Beetle TDI 5sp, '94 Audi Cabriolet(AFN swap in progress)
Just replaced an AGM battery in our 2015 TDI Beetle Convertible, it's at least the 4th battery it has had.

Bought the car in 2020 from dealer after a year on their lot and another year or so since buy-back, it had a no-name FLA battery in it.

Car is used daily for short trips, often less than 5-7 miles. 20 mile trips a few times a week.

December 2021 replaced with a DEKA Intimidator 9a48 AGM battery manufactured in 10/21. I can't recall how much of the battery coding via VCDS I did, or if that was on another short-trip vehicle I switched from FLA to AGM.
Fall 2022: with our first cool nights(40F) battery required jumping to start, I used an external Schumacher AGM-capable charger to fully charge the battery with success.
Fall 2023: same as fall 2022.
Last Thursday(13 September, 2024): The car failed to start and the battery was discharged, vents were 'popped'. Used external charger with AGM rates to charge to 100% sucessfully within 8 hours. Overnight it lost that charge and would not start. Late on a Friday afternoon and needing the car, I replaced with a DEKA FLA group 48 battery.

Today I hooked up VCDS (yes, using a current Ross-Tech cable) to re-code the battery type/charging profile, but I'm only finding options to change AH rating, manufacture and serial number. I could have sworn I changed the charging rate from FLA to AGM, but now "Adaptation - 10" via UDS is greyed out in VCDS.

Am I misrembering that the 2015 Beetle has BEM? The stored AH rating was 69ah, with the battery manufacture and serial number fields all zeros...
 
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