Battery Dying at 3 Years, 3 Months- Good Replacement?

My 2015 GTI SE PP 6MT with under 17k on the clock has been getting harder and harder to start for about a month. I kept checking the battery regularly and it read a touch over 12v every time. Today, I drove home from work and parked. I checked the battery tonight and it read just over 11v, so I tried to start it and ...it was dead . I ran Ross-Tech Vagcom/VCDS on my laptop and all kinds of faults showed up that I know aren't correct. I started to think that it was the fuel pump control module, as I've seen them die, but it didn't show up as bad.

I waited a couple of hours and the battery read over 12v again. I tried to start the car and it turned right over. My other car, a 2003 Honda S2000, eats batteries every year or so, so this isn't my first hayride, but I was reading that I may have to recode the battery info through VAGCOM or my car might not charge correctly.

My questions:
1) What is the correct physical battery size in a 2015 GTI? Looks like a 47 or 48 to me (BCI H5 or H6?), but I can't be certain.
2) Can I just buy a good quality replacement battery and do the install, then code it if necessary? This is my first car with so many electronics, so I need a simple answer, if possible. I don't care if I lose radio station presets, but I read that other settings might get erased as well if I don't have a way to keep 12v somehow connected during the battery swap.
3) Any non-OEM suggestions for batteries that work/fit? Maybe OEM batteries will only last 3 years in a GTI, but I'd like one that might live a few more years.

I'd like to preserve the OEM battery cover (it's where my Neuspeed Power Module hides), so I don't want to go with a battery with a different footprint than stock. Thanks for the help.

Sub’d

I replaced mine last August, and the dealer OE battery was cheapest.

There is a new battery for the 2015 Mk7s, which is a 65Ah vs the original 55Ah.

all info on swapping batteries & going bigger...here:-

https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7926

RichL,

Is your car still under factory warranty? bumper to bumper 3/36k will cover batteries from most makers...

jcarl126 said:

RichL,

Is your car still under factory warranty? bumper to bumper 3/36k will cover batteries from most makers...

Click to expand...

Nope. It's 3 years and 3 months old. Just missed the warranty period.

golfdave said:

all info on swapping batteries & going bigger...here:-

https://www.golfmk7.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7926

Click to expand...

Thanks GolfDave. I'm hoping the battery's the issue and I can get on with it after replacing it. The car was acting strangely for a few weeks, but now it seems that anything electrical that wasn't getting proper voltage was acting up. I'll get a battery, recode the battery, clear the codes and see what happens.

RichL said:

Thanks GolfDave. I'm hoping the battery's the issue and I can get on with it after replacing it. The car was acting strangely for a few weeks, but now it seems that anything electrical that wasn't getting proper voltage was acting up. I'll get a battery, recode the battery, clear the codes and see what happens.

Click to expand...

Ahh rats. Well in that case, if youre looking for heavy duty alternatives i always go Interstate for the added CCAs and some of them have 6yr warranties on them!

RichL said:

Thanks GolfDave. I'm hoping the battery's the issue and I can get on with it after replacing it. The car was acting strangely for a few weeks, but now it seems that anything electrical that wasn't getting proper voltage was acting up. I'll get a battery, recode the battery, clear the codes and see what happens.

Click to expand...

No problems...

VAG seem to be fitting batteries that are "just" big enough to last a couple of years..then they go flat as they can't cope with the demands...

OEM is the only way to go, I had so many battery issues with my MKV and once I went back to the OEM one I had no issues. I think I went through 3 batterys in ~ 4 years but haven't had an issue with my OEM battery in the last 3 years


tl;dr - Get an OEM battery.

Yeah some people are going with third party batteries and having to deal with coding depending on the features of your car.

I also agree go with the OEM its reasonably priced and seems to last good.

Went to the local VW dealer as they had an exact replacement battery in stock for a reasonable price (no idea how that happened). Mentioned that my car was 3 years and 3 months old, just enough to be out of warranty (not thinking the battery would have been covered, but maybe). He said he sells lots of replacement batteries to GTI/R owners after about 3 to 3 1/2 years. Got it home, easily removed the old one and installed the new one. I didn't have a 12v supply to keep everything as is, so I took a chance and simply removed power in the process. Used VAGCOM to change the battery serial # by one digit.

Buttoned up the car and started it. Several major yellow warning lights came on. I checked the owner's manual which clearly stated that these would come on if power had been removed and then reintroduced. The fix in the manual was to drive the car "A short distance at 10 to 12 miles per hour." Pulled out of my driveway, got about 20 feet and all the warning lights went out. Turned the car off, restarted and everything is good. I reprogrammed the auto up/down for the windows and auto open/close for the sunroof and everything is working as it should. The only causalities were a reset trip counter and lost radio presets.

Thanks for all the help. It was a strange experience to have a car act like something was critically wrong with all its major systems before the battery voltage finally dropped below 11v and refused to start.

AspektZA said:

I replaced mine last August, and the dealer OE battery was cheapest.

There is a new battery for the 2015 Mk7s, which is a 65Ah vs the original 55Ah.

Click to expand...

+1

jcarl126 said:

RichL,

Is your car still under factory warranty? bumper to bumper 3/36k will cover batteries from most makers...

Click to expand...

Mine is in warranty but guy said battery wasn't covered.

Can confirm batteries aren't covered by the "bumper to bumper" warranty. One would think with the battery being placed between the bumpers it would be covered, but apparently it's not the case.

Mine went kaput about two weeks ago. Dealer told me the warranty on those things only extend to 22.5k miles. Fortunately I was 400 miles under that mark so I got mine for free.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk