Dead battery after 18k, symptom ?

My last car (Infiniti G) went through batteries pretty quick. I would put it on a battery tender once in a while. Since I've gotten in the habit of it, I do it with my GTI now too.

If the dealer is replacing it under warranty I'm sure they will run a diagnostic check to make sure the charging system is up to par. I didn't know the R had an appetite for batteries, I know the C6 Corvettes seemed to be pretty hard on them.

Good to know it's a 'regular' BCI-47 battery and not some ubber expensive dealer only item.

Rodcollier said:

I hate taking it to a dealer since I'll need to remove my tune and pull my JB4 and intake ...

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Crikey you even remove the intake? Tough dealer. Battery on my GTI died last week at 17K miles, thought it was because of the high heat of where I live, but seems it might be more common than I thought.

I do have a JB4 tucked down in the battery cover which had me dreading going to the dealer, I got lucky tho and one of their mechanics is a member of a local VW Facebook page. Set the appt with me so he took care of warranty battery replacement work.

I realized that by trying to tuck the JB4 wires nice and hidden for an OE look only makes for more effort when it comes time to remove it. lol

B95zP said:

Crikey you even remove the intake? Tough dealer. Battery on my GTI died last week at 17K miles, thought it was because of the high heat of where I live, but seems it might be more common than I thought.

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Arizona eats batteries. Especially VW batteries. Trust me, I plenty of experience.

21K, battery just died, replaced it, no warning, just quit after being fine that morning...

I know Car-net talks to my phone, but not more than once or so, this wasn't a drained battery, this was a bad cell that would not crank the car, the doors, etc all worked, just would not start...

Replaced it with a better one... I think it's just the high heat of the engine more than the environment...

Yes, people it is the HEAT not time necessarily that kills batteries. Like the person above from AZ mentioned. Same here in TX. I replace a battery, or have it replaced under warranty every 2 years, give or take a few months. In this heat, anything after that you are on "borrowed time".

jedredgti said:

Yes, people it is the HEAT not time necessarily that kills batteries. Like the person above from AZ mentioned. Same here in TX. I replace a battery, or have it replaced under warranty every 2 years, give or take a few months. In this heat, anything after that you are on "borrowed time".

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Cold is bad for battery life too, but heat is worse.

I've had good luck with my BMWs though, through a combination of using AGM batteries, which resist the heat better, and the fact that they are trunk-mounted and away from the heat of the engine bay. I wish our VW batteries were rear-mounted too.

For anyone with Kessy it's important to lock the car, if the car is unlocked and the key is nearby, but just enough for the signal to pop in and out, the car will keep going to through the approach cycle where it primes the fuel pump and a few other things to prepare for ignition. It also stays in "search mode" and there are quite a few sensors around the car trying to determine the location of the key so it can decide whether or not to open the trunk or fire up the engine.

At least this is what some friends of mine who are techs explained to me, and I think they are trustworthy.

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Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said:

For anyone with Kessy it's important to lock the car, if the car is unlocked and the key is nearby, but just enough for the signal to pop in and out, the car will keep going to through the approach cycle ....

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I call bullsh1t on this one. My car is NEVER locked in the garage, and is now 13 months old. Car battery & remote battery both fine. Key is kept nearby, right on the other side of the garage wall, prob 15 feet away.

Sounds like these techs are simply guessing, and passing out bogus info based on their assumptions.

KevinC said:

I call bullsh1t on this one. My car is NEVER locked in the garage, and is now 13 months old. Car battery & remote battery both fine. Key is kept nearby, right on the other side of the garage wall, prob 15 feet away.

Sounds like these techs are simply guessing, and passing out bogus info based on their assumptions.

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It's also in the shop manual (on erWin), so it's what Volkswagen is telling them.

Without testing on a whole bunch of cars with various key distances, it would be hard to know for sure. But I'm not sure anyone would sign up for such a boring study.

Their explanation makes sense, in theory, but I doubt that it means that every person who doesnt lock their car is going to have their battery die.

Leaving my car unlocked doesn't really save me any time, so I just lock it.

Cheap insurance, and if doesn't actually matter? Meh.

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Dr. Kenneth Noisewater said:

For anyone with Kessy it's important to lock the car, if the car is unlocked and the key is nearby, but just enough for the signal to pop in and out, the car will keep going to through the approach cycle where it primes the fuel pump and a few other things to prepare for ignition. It also stays in "search mode" and there are quite a few sensors around the car trying to determine the location of the key so it can decide whether or not to open the trunk or fire up the engine.

At least this is what some friends of mine who are techs explained to me, and I think they are trustworthy.

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Did you mean leave it unlocked not locked? No reason to search for the key if the car isn't locked.

Urlik said:

Did you mean leave it unlocked not locked? No reason to search for the key if the car isn't locked.

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The engine won't start if the key isn't in a certain area, hence why it stays active. Try starting the car with the key about 2 feet from the driver side door, it will usually give you a "key out of range" warning. I've had it refuse to start when the key was in my left pocket and I was leaning in to start it with my left hand on the brake pedal.

Can someone explain to me why this is controversial? This is the information VW provides to the dealers and VW certified body shops. I don't understand the resistance.

It's in erWin, I'll see if I can find the section and subsection (can't post it because copyright infringement). But this is pretty common knowledge, Kessy has been around for a while on other platforms (most notably the CC).

Just to be clear, this doesn't happen just because the car is unlocked, it happens when the key (which uses RF) has a weak signal. Like when your WiFi drops in and out at range. It would be highly dependent on several factors, and wall construction.

Connect, pre-ignition cycle, drop, search connect, pre-ignition cycle, drop, search, etc.

I'm not blaming people for losing their batteries, in fact, I'd say this use case is an example of poor software design on the part of VW.

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