Well, I wasn't expecting that - duff battery

[Peter_S]

I think I was so shocked at the time I forgot to ask for a breakdown.
I've since found out the price incl VAT of the battery from another dealer in the same group, £190.66
Enhanced Flooded something I think they said, hence the high cost.
So that would give fitting, disposal etc.  of £137.99, right?

Yesterday, the Service Supervisor said the work would include inputting several "codes" after the battery is installed.  Does that make sense?
Not like the old days when all we had to remember was the radio code after we put a new battery in!

Peter_S

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.

[jv]

Info on battery types, coding etc:
https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7926

Long gone are the days of a 40 quid battery from Halfords and fit in 2 mins yourself

[Philip]

I had an AGM supplied and fitted by Halfords in April, £180 ish including the coding to tell the car it had a new battery.

[fredgroves]

I had an AGM supplied and fitted by Halfords in April, £180 ish including the coding to tell the car it had a new battery.

That's more like it...

[2007GTI]

what is a normal SOC % after a long drive?

[Peter_S]

Thanks for that comparative info, at least the VW battery quote is slightly less which is a good thing of course.

Peter_S
[quo te author=boardlord link=topic=285795.msg2611804#msg2611804 date=1571758691]
A top spec Bosch AGM battery is currently aboout £205 with express delivery from eurocarparts with discount code GHOST80
[/quote]

[Finglonga]

I had an AGM supplied and fitted by Halfords in April, £180 ish including the coding to tell the car it had a new battery.

The AGM battery is £125.60 with the Trade card now, and coding is simple 5 minutes to do by anyone with a cable local or OBDEleven. £328 is a total dealer rip off.

[Peter_S]

Thanks Watts, again. 
It’s beyond my capabilities I’m afraid.
But I’ll ask the indie who looks after my wife’s MINI Cooper if they can do it.
They’re very good and I trust them.

Peter_S

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...

[Peter_S]

Toeman, funnily enough I was thinking along those lines this morning.
Thanks for your suggestion.
I definitely will check it out.

I recall that my Mk V GTI (bought new by me 2006) had its battery replaced under warranty after 5 months.

I'm going to get a trusted second opinion from an non-VW dealer on the condition of the battery before I go back to the VW dealer.

Peter_S
BTW, just for clarification, your colleague's car was Golf, right?  Also, the local garage was a VW dealer, right?

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

[Peter_S]

Yes, I took advantage (if that's the right word) of the Express Visual Check a couple of weeks ago.  I specifically asked them to check the battery (outside of EVC) which they did.   Battery and alternator reported ok.   Yesterday, same garage said "Battery worn out".

I got those in-car warnings about 2-3 weeks ago too.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, very interesting and useful to know.

Did you personally contact VW?   Did they fit it for too?

My warranty ran out in May 2019 but full-service history from new - I'm still willing to give it a go though.

Peter_S

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.