Well, I wasn't expecting that - duff battery

[Peter_S]

I took the car this morning to the local VW dealer to have a wheel alignment adjustment.

It sounded a bit "tired" when I started it up (in the garage at home) so I asked them to check battery and alternator.
The car is MY16 (April)

Complimentary Express Visual Check two weeks ago gave a battery ok report - I asked them to specifically to check it because it had gone flat on me a few days before.

When I picked the car up I was presented (very nicely and politely) with a "Battery worn out" printout.

They're quoting £328.65 including labour and presumably VAT to supply and fit a new one.

Can this be right? !!

Peter_S

[fredgroves]

At the very least I'd be asking for a breakdown of that cost...

See quite what they are doing to make a 10 minute £100 battery swap into that sort of eye watering figure.

[boardlord]

A top spec Bosch AGM battery is currently aboout £205 with express delivery from eurocarparts with discount code GHOST80

[Watts]

Main dealers! Audi were going to charge me half an hour labour to change the headlight switch on my old A4 which took the service assistant less than 1 minute to do (no exaggeration, I was shocked how quick it was and how much they wanted to charge me, bloody robbery). A different Audi garage wanted nearly £50 off a colleague to change a rear indicator bulb, a 5 minute job, the same to adjust the washers and £175 to replace a rusty exhaust clamp!

As for the OP's battery, do it yourself or just go elsewhere. Bear in mind though that apparently the car's brain needs to be told the battery is new. If you can't do it yourself then perhaps a friendly fellow forumite with OBD11 can oblige...

[Toeman]

Colleague of mine at work today mentioned her battery had failed  local garage said there had been batch of dud batteries  put into golfs they were able to check and are putting in a new battery under warranty her car is two year old  maybe worth checking out

[Pixwix]

After several in-car warnings about it needing charging I expected a similar report during my service just before end of warranty, nothing was mentioned. About 2 weeks later I had an experience when it took a few goes to start, took it to the garage, similar quote for a new battery. I argued the toss , was offered some money towards it, rang VW uk and actually got it FOC, the customer advisor was quite surprised with that result. I guess I was lucky it was literally only a few weeks out of warranty.

[Talk-torque]

I wonder if the battery is more likely to fail early if stop/start is used? We currently use it on both our cars, (my Golf and wife’s Fabia Estate) as it now works so well, but is this, maybe, a reason not to?

[fredgroves]

I wonder if the battery is more likely to fail early if stop/start is used? We currently use it on both our cars, (my Golf and wife’s Fabia Estate) as it now works so well, but is this, maybe, a reason not to?

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/what_causes_car_batteries_to_fail

[Booth11]

I wonder if the battery is more likely to fail early if stop/start is used? We currently use it on both our cars, (my Golf and wife’s Fabia Estate) as it now works so well, but is this, maybe, a reason not to?

Well my battery gave up the ghost last year at 30 months old at around 17k miles (replaced under warranty) and I’ve had stop /start disabled (via obdeleven) for most of the life of the car.  There been quite a few R owners have had the battery fail within the original warranty period, replaced under warranty.

[2007GTI]

that is very interesting!

I wonder if the battery is more likely to fail early if stop/start is used? We currently use it on both our cars, (my Golf and wife’s Fabia Estate) as it now works so well, but is this, maybe, a reason not to?

https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/archive/what_causes_car_batteries_to_fail