Thread: Battery life

Originally Posted by spudfan

Our 2008 Puma is still running with the original factory fitted battery. Anyone else getting such good service from theirs?
(I'll probably need a jump start tomorrow)

Our 2012 puma shorty needed a new battery in 2017 so I think you are doing well!

I reckon batteries have to be the one part that is impossible to predict a service life for!

Too many variables that can affect service life. Manufacturing being probably the most important.
In my D1, I have a Century NS70X, got new not long after I got the D1. Has 3 yr warranty. It supposedly has a 720CCA rating .. feel more like about 500CCA in the Tdi.
One cell died within about 10-11 months .. made battery useless. This battery only gets used for normal car stuff, never used for accessories like fridge/lights/stuff.

For the accessories I fitted an Aux. Cheapo Repco, 50Ah, was on special(maybe low $100's) .. just to get me going ASAP back then. Could have fitted a massive N70ZZ 100Ah or something, but a bit of mucking about to fit it.
The repco gets used heavily .. I'm not TRYING to kill it, but as it's a mid - low Ah capacity, my fridge just naturally tries to kill it.
I know it's got below 8v in many situations, but it always comes up and comes good again .. still works good. I'd estimate that I've depleted it in that manner maybe 7-10 times now(in 2 years), and it always comes good.
A battery test indicates that it gives 600CCA, where the Century only gives about low 500's(I think 535 last time I tested it).
When the Century's(both) were newer(say 6 months) they felt fine. cranked the Tdi very quickly, but they don't seem to hold up well past about 6 months.
Only up side for now with my current one is that it lasted more than 12 months .. for now!

To me it makes zero sense. The battery I try to look after, seems to be the weak one, and the battery I don't really care about seems to be the one that holds up better!

My 2014 Puma battery gave up just before Christmas. It wasn't regularly driven which didn't help.

I'm looking for a replacement now. Probably replace it with a Varta again (around $500 I think). Hoping to proven wrong on the cost.

Originally Posted by 4xsama

My 2014 Puma battery gave up just before Christmas. It wasn't regularly driven which didn't help.

I'm looking for a replacement now. Probably replace it with a Varta again (around $500 I think). Hoping to proven wrong on the cost.

You should consider Supercharge. When we purchased our Defender TD5 Xtreme in 2004, as a demo with 1500 Kms, it had a Supercharge Gold MF95D31 in it. (probably not the original, & larger than the usual).

This lasted 10.5 years.

Our other vehicle was a 2005 Magna purchased new. Its original battery lasted just over 3 years & was replaced with a Supercharge Silver. When we sold the car 6 years later it was still going strong.

Enough said!

Cheers,

Lionel

Our 2009 Varta gave up two years ago, so that was a good run.

Jinx...

Haven’t driven the defer for four weeks or so......

It was sluggish starting this morning and has gotten worse after a 50km Drive.

Looks like it was installed 08/12......

Replacement



And the guy at Battery World even knew where the battery is housed......and before opening the door said to me, hope you don’t have two batteries in the box....