Car Battery Question

ION08

My car wont crank at all, I will try charge the battery tomorrow and see if it'll hold but more than likely needs replacing as it's pretty old I imagine.

The car is an Audi A4 1.9TDI, the current battery is 80Ah.

I got a decent price of €75 for a 74Ah or 72Ah battery from a local motor factors.

My question is, will this be ok or do I really need an 80Ah?

Cheers

Dark sun

ION08 wrote: »

My car wont crank at all, I will try charge the battery tomorrow and see if it'll hold but more than likely needs replacing as it's pretty old I imagine.

The car is an Audi A4 1.9TDI, the current battery is 80Ah.

I got a decent price of €75 for a 74Ah or 72Ah battery from a local motor factors.

My question is, will this be ok or do I really need an 80Ah?x

Cheers

72 or 74ah will be fine as long as you don't have anything extra running off battery EG. Sub woofer, should be sufficient, go with a know brand, I got a Bosch s4 for around 85.

ION08

Dark sun wrote: »

72 or 74ah will be fine as long as you don't have anything extra running off battery EG. Sub woofer, should be sufficient, go with a know brand, I got a Bosch s4 for around 85.

Nope nice and standard.

Thought as much. Afaik higher Amps are only needed for starts in extremely cold weather!

Not sure of the brand now but cant imagine it being a Bosch.

Brand shouldn't make too much difference should it?!

ironclaw

ION08 wrote: »

Brand shouldn't make too much difference should it?!

Big difference in battery tech alright. Buy cheap, buy twice.

Honestly I'd be replacing like for like for the sake of a few quid. If its rated 80 and your putting in a lower rating, your potentially stressing the battery unduly. Your reducing the overhead for a tad more current on a cold start etc..

ba_barabus

ironclaw wrote: »

Honestly I'd be replacing like for like for the sake of a few quid.

My experience of cheap lower powered batteries is they make the electrical system on some cars go bananas

Toyotafanboi

just took a "quik start" or some such crap brand battery out of my corolla, date of sale 07/08 etched into it. was still perfect, holding a good charge and would start the car perfectly after decent periods of lying up.

took it out because i like renewing things. replaced it with a euroglobe or something. never had a bad experience with non premium branded batteries. motor factors are offering 3 years + warranties on some of them. surely they are all just lead and de-ionised water in a plastic shell?

also aren't ah and cca 2 different things? i wouldn't be afraid of a small deviation from OEM in a fairly non complex car.

Sir Arthur Daley

Replace the battery to the cars specs.

ba_barabus

Sir Arthur Daley wrote: »

Replace the battery to the cars specs.

yep

jca

Toyotafanboi wrote: »

just took a "quik start" or some such crap brand battery out of my corolla, date of sale 07/08 etched into it. was still perfect, holding a good charge and would start the car perfectly after decent periods of lying up.

took it out because i like renewing things. replaced it with a euroglobe or something. never had a bad experience with non premium branded batteries. motor factors are offering 3 years + warranties on some of them. surely they are all just lead and de-ionised water in a plastic shell?

also aren't ah and cca 2 different things? i wouldn't be afraid of a small deviation from OEM in a fairly non complex car.

Petrol or diesel corolla? I'd go with the 80 ah in a diesel on a freezing morning you'll need every one of those 80 amps...

FISMA

ION08 wrote: »

I got a decent price of €75 for a 74Ah or 72Ah battery from a local motor factors.

My question is, will this be ok or do I really need an 80Ah?

What does the factory spec call for? What kind of mods have you done to the car? If it is still factory (electrically speaking) then go with whatever they recommended.

Those Engineers get paid a lot for a reason. You'll want the correct cold cranking amps some frosty morning.

CJhaughey

I usually oversize batteries on diesels when I have to replace them.
You won't worry about too much capacity in batteries but you will regret buying too small a battery when you are stuck somewhere.

visual

Its ok to up the AH or CCA but going the other dirrection is asking for trouble.

Its winter time you'll be using most from battery
lights rear window heater wipers etc etc stuck in traffic and all batteries new and old are less efficient in cold weather.

But if you do buy the lower AH battery get a set of jump leads