Will anybody sell me the right battery?

[fouillard13]

Lots of hand wringing and overthinking for just a battery... LOL.

all that because she refuses to shop at the local NAPA because they arent forcing you to wear a piece of useless fabric over your face for the 15 breaths you take while in the store.

sad.

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Thanks for explaining why I call GM parts departments "orphanages"... Makes me appreciate the fact that the MQB cars are probably the world's most common platform.

 

[BobnOH]

I know it's counter intuitive, but usually the VW dealer is the best place to get the right battery at a decent price. And stay out of stores where people don't mask up.

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

all that because she refuses to shop at the local NAPA because they arent forcing you to wear a piece of useless fabric over your face for the 15 breaths you take while in the store.

sad.

When you're 70 years old you take COVID-19 seriously. In my age group if I catch it I have a 7% chance of dying and about a 25% chance of being hospitalized. And the folksy local NAPA has other problems, like they don't seem to understand that NAPA has a neat website where you can order stuff or check inventory and then pick up the parts at their store. Best luck I've had locally was the Advance Auto 40 miles away who let me dig through their selection of brake fitting adapters in the back room to find a couple that would connect the metric front lines to the inch back lines on my '98 Ranger.

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Friendly local (110 miles) VW dealer parts person called back, they have only 2 sizes of battery with only a VW parts number to identify them, he was nice enough to measure and it sounds like they're H5 and H6 sizes. Price is reasonable at $136 for either size so I may get an H6 for the 2015 there.

 

[BobnOH]

Yea, just look up what that car takes, it will be the largest that fits

 

[Gothmolly]

This thread is humorous. I guess I have never experienced this sort of nonsense.

And the three most common VAG 4 cyl car batteries over the last couple decades, the H5, H6, and H7, are also VERY common now. Cars that are not at all "exotic", like Dodge Caravans, Chevrolet Silverados, and such, use the same ones. So it isn't like they are hard to find outside of a dealer. I live in rural Missouri, you cannot swing a dead possum around here without hitting a Silverado or Sierra that has an H7 type battery under its hood.

I don't go into a grocery store and have some idiot on a computer look up what can of green beans I need for a recipe, either. That's how silly all this sounds to me, but whatever.

Then why bother commenting?

 

[STDOUBT]

Then why bother commenting?

To bring some value to the thread I would imagine!

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Ended up getting the Walmart battery for the '03 Golf, no "what car is it for" from the clerk, just paid my money and hauled it home. Charged it overnight and installed this morning, starts so quick now I can barely turn the key from "start" to "run" fast enough!

 

[BuckeyeMan71]

Got 2 TDIs, 2003 Golf came from the factory with an H7 size battery and the 2015 Golf came with an H5 but an H6 will easily fit, reputedly the H6 was standard in Canada but I'm in darn near as cold Minnesota. Interstate's website insists that the '03 takes an inadequate H5 and when prompted with the proper build code says the '15 takes an H6. Unfortunately Costco which has the best prices on Interstate batteries says it has no batteries that fit either TDI, giving me something else to argue with Costco Auto Center managers about. Fleet Farm sends me a discount coupon every week or so in hopes I'll attempt to buy something even if they don't have it in stock, but insists that both TDIs take H5s and refuses to let me buy anything else. NAPA has a 20% off with 3 items promotion going, but the local franchisees are a little too independent to be bothered with masks. Heck, I may have to resort to Walmart- not the lowest prices and they don't even have the BCI group 48 equivalent of an H6, but at least they've got an H7...

Have you tried batteries plus?

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Nearest Batteries Plus is 70 miles away in the COVID-19 "hot zone" of Sioux Falls. They at least have figured out that an H6 will bolt right into the 2015, and if I tell their website the 2003 is home to a V6 it'll offer an H7. There prices aren't that competitive.

 

[Hayze]

This post has a ton of comments but i will fit my 2 cents in on the situation.
You mentioned "Cold Weather" and batteries that wont fit from places like cosco.

If i lived in a place such as Canada or Minnesota, the first thing i would do to any car is route the battery cables in the trunk. Get a battery case, some proper electrical rated insulation, pad it on all 4 corners and bottom of battery.
From how i see it, your tunnel visioning an underlying issue that can actually go more than 1 way if you think outside the box a little bit.
Really its not a size that matters, its about cold crank amps, and battery rated specs that will work for your vehicle.

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Agreed, I've been using big car batteries in the sidecar attached to my motorcycle for years- Way more capacity and often the battery is cheaper too. Remote mounted batteries have been SOP when rules allow in race cars for years, but in a street car the increased resistance of the longer cables might eat up any gains from the bigger battery.

 

[scooperhsd]

SO just use thicker (bigger) cables to make up for the extra length.

 

[muzy]

This post has a ton of comments but i will fit my 2 cents in on the situation.
You mentioned "Cold Weather" and batteries that wont fit from places like cosco.

If i lived in a place such as Canada or Minnesota, the first thing i would do to any car is route the battery cables in the trunk. Get a battery case, some proper electrical rated insulation, pad it on all 4 corners and bottom of battery.
From how i see it, your tunnel visioning an underlying issue that can actually go more than 1 way if you think outside the box a little bit.
Really its not a size that matters, its about cold crank amps, and battery rated specs that will work for your vehicle.

Yes has been a good measurement in the past for me. But I have noticed that such specked batteries often fail if a person needs to cycle glows twice, as I do frequently when temps get around -15 c.
My last battery was an agm. It performed adequately until I used extended glow cylcles, that battery at 3 months old would fall on its face every time.
This year I picked up a h7 from Costco , and even with extended glow cycles will still spin that 1.9 fast enough for quick starts.
Cheers

 

[scooperhsd]

This is why you need RESERVE CAPACITY, not CCA, when putting a battery in a TDI (or any diesel powered vehicle, really).

 

[Nuje]

Old friend of mine in San Deigo has a 1st gen Odyssey they bought new. His wife drove it, his kids learned to drive it, and I think his daughter used it to play bumper cars. But he won't part with it, still sits in his driveway as a spare car. Said it's been totally bulletproof.

Brian, you didn't mention that the Vibe was (I believe) built in the Nummi plant in CA, where the Geo Prism was also assembled. And is now owned by...Tesla.

I'm pretty sure my 1987 Chevy Nova (re-badged Corolla) was built at the same (now)Tesla plant.

 

[AndyCambra]

Personally I wouldn't tell them, have them bring it out to the curb if you're uncomfortable with going into the store. They are not hard to install. check omegle

 

[oilhammer]

Nuje, the Nova of that vintage was not a rebadged Corolla, it was technically a rebadged Sprinter. It was born from the fact that Toyota has standalone Corolla-only dealers in various markets, and the "Corolla" is a whole sub-line of Toyotas, and thus only Corolla dealers can sell them, but not just any Toyota dealer. The non-Corolla Toyota dealers instead sold a car called the Sprinter.

Sort of like here where non-Chevrolet GM dealers (Pontiac, Oldsmobile, Buick, etc.) sold GMC trucks instead. Which were *mostly* the same exact thing.

We never had that sort of thing here, as Toyota really never marketed the Corolla like that. Early Tercels were briefly sold here as "Corolla Tercels" but that badge went away pretty quickly. It remained that way in many other markets, though, along with other models like the Matrix, which we had as its own model, but in other markets they were sold through Corolla dealers as the "Corolla Matrix". Some of the models sold here as Scions were also sold as "Corolla - XXXX" there, too.

They also have a sub-line of Land Cruisers. We've only ever gotten one of those available here at any one given time (at a Toyota dealership), but there have been (and still are) a bunch of different trucks sold as Land Cruisers. The Cygnus (which we DID get, but not called that), the Prado (we got as the Lexus GX) and others.

 

[Steve-o]

That used to work. Nowadays they're dumbing down parts picking so any high school dropout can sorta do it.

They're also warding off returns for batteries that don't fit, etc. Can't tell you how many batteries I see advertised on craigslist and Facebook Marketplace that just show a pic of the entire battery with no clue as to the size (take a picture of the top; you've already posted three view of the same casing). Most people don't know/don't care.

 

[Mongler98]

you do know that there are only 3 manufacturers that actually make batteries that go in cars (and just about everything else!) Its all rebranded / QC / Marketing BS
proper size isn't an issue, spend less, drive more. Unless your driving around maple land it does not matter too much.

 

[jmodge]

you do know that there are only 3 manufacturers that actually make batteries that go in cars (and just about everything else!) Its all rebranded / QC / Marketing BS
proper size isn't an issue, spend less, drive more. Unless your driving around maple land it does not matter too much.

There’s 4 now, Shep joined in

 

[Mongler98]

well technically 6 but tesla, GE, and Bowing, do not count for what we are talking about. I did not know that Sheppard started making car batteries, i thought they pumped bajillions of denaros into lithium to try and get a corner hold agaisnt tesla and the african lithium mine scanel........... you know what. forget i said anything.
sure there are 4 now!

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Happy to report that Costco finally got it right and agrees with me that an H6 size battery fits a Golf 7 TDI. Their website may no show it, but the computers in the warehouses list the H6 along with the H5 as fitments.

 

[Baumeister]

My 2 cents,from a long history of using 'uprated' parts in my cars that were OE in other models: Figure out the battery YOU want, find the application for it. Find that car online, via eBay, whatever and record a few of the VINs. Use THAT with the parts counters, etc. and you'll be fine. If they give you any grief tell them you swapped the engine/transmission, and that'll disarm them completely.

 

[gearheadgrrrl]

Yup, I've had to do that a couple times...

 

[tdidieselbobny]

And you can actually fit an H8 in the '03, have one in my Jetta, just can't use the plastic side covers and the fuse/cable thing just rests on top of battery....