Dead Battery at 2.5 years

[achk]

My Passat 206TSI was delivered in March 2017 - early 2017 built. Last week, the battery died and needed to be replaced. I drive roughly 10-15,000km a year - mix of urban/highway commute. Is this normal? All my previous cars have their batteries lasting at least 4-5 years before needing replacement.

Luckily, VW roadside assist was very efficient. Attended within one hour and swapped in a new battery and it was all covered by the vehicle's warranty.

[Lucas_R]

Id suggest something was wrong with the battery - seems far too early for a battery to die unless something was wrong.

[kamold]

Nope that's not that abnormal. Modern cars have a lot of demand from batteries. Put a car on accessories and it could be drawing up to 15amps!
That said they need to provide a battery that is up to the task in the market they sell it. So good they replaced it.
If you need to replace out of warranty consider an AGM as it will last much longer (mine is factory fitted and now over 10 years old)

[Transporter]

My Passat 206TSI was delivered in March 2017 - early 2017 built. Last week, the battery died and needed to be replaced. I drive roughly 10-15,000km a year - mix of urban/highway commute. Is this normal? All my previous cars have their batteries lasting at least 4-5 years before needing replacement.

Luckily, VW roadside assist was very efficient. Attended within one hour and swapped in a new battery and it was all covered by the vehicle's warranty.

Try disabling stop start system before every drive or better still disable it permanently.

[zzc2010]

My Passat 206TSI was delivered in March 2017 - early 2017 built. Last week, the battery died and needed to be replaced. I drive roughly 10-15,000km a year - mix of urban/highway commute. Is this normal? All my previous cars have their batteries lasting at least 4-5 years before needing replacement.

Luckily, VW roadside assist was very efficient. Attended within one hour and swapped in a new battery and it was all covered by the vehicle's warranty.

Mine was dead weeks ago without any indications.

Road side assistant came and replaced with a AGM battery.

My old golf 7 battery lasted more than 4 years and it was a AGM then they replaced with a EFB.

My Passat came with a EFB and lasted less than 3 years.

The assisting systems and auto start-stop do eat up the batteries quite rapid.

Interestingly, there were quite a lot dead batteries reports recently.

Is it a weather issue? Or maybe everyone is back from holidays. [emoji23]

[ope126]

My Passat 206TSI was delivered in March 2017 - early 2017 built. Last week, the battery died and needed to be replaced. I drive roughly 10-15,000km a year - mix of urban/highway commute. Is this normal? All my previous cars have their batteries lasting at least 4-5 years before needing replacement.

Luckily, VW roadside assist was very efficient. Attended within one hour and swapped in a new battery and it was all covered by the vehicle's warranty.

Glad to hear it is all sorted now.

Was it VW Assist or a subsidiary?
Did they replace your defective battery with an original VW Battery or an aftermarket replacement?
Did they replace your EFB battery with an AGM by any chance? That would be the best outcome...

For the future, you could try using a trickle charger every now and then.

I personally use a CTEK MXS 5.0 MXS 5.0 and it is great!

[rave75]

Same with my MY16 132tsi Passat. Had to replace the battery last year (after 2 years). They road assist guy did tell me he saw a lot of cases for that particular battery accross VW, Audi, skoda. The battery died after less than 3 years. He replaced the battery with something else that he said should be good for a long time.

[Tuan]

Covered under warranty is a win.

Did you or didn't you religiously use stop/start on this car ?

[rave75]

Not religiously at all, most times I turned it off, it is annoying.

[Tuan]

Not religiously at all, most times I turned it off, it is annoying.

How often is is used 25%, 50%, 75% of the time ?

I always turn mine off currently, but am considering using it all the time just to try to score a battery within the 3 year warranty period LOL.

[Transporter]

How often is is used 25%, 50%, 75% of the time ?

I always turn mine off currently, but am considering using it all the time just to try to score a battery within the 3 year warranty period LOL.

Turn the S/S system off and additionally also use the battery charger every 3months to fully charge your battery and the same battery should last you well beyond 6 years.

I get mad when I don’t get at least 6 years out of my batteries, the last one in T5 lasted almost 10 years and it was still starting (in ideal weather) when I replaced it.

[achk]

I must say I rarely turn my S/S off - only in hot weather when I want to keep the AC running. That's probably why the battery died in such short period. Thinking about it, the environment impact of producing and disposing such battery would most likely outweigh any benefit from a stop-start system.

I can't tell if the new battery fitted is AGM or not... it doesn't say on the top. But it's definitely looks different and has a slightly higher cranking amp output than the original one. I think it's come with its own 3 year warranty.

The whole experience with the VW assist (provided by allianze) was quite good and I'm glad the battery is fully covered under the new car warranty with no question asked.

[rave75]

less than 25%.

[Micky 32]

I’m surprised your Passats didn’t come from the factory with a AGM, mine did ( February 2017)

In 2017 a lot of VAG cars were fitted with a bad batch of Moll EFB batteries, most failed.

My fathers 2007 Passat is still on it’s original battery!

[blackgrade]

The battery died on my Passat 132 TSI Comfortline today (11 Jan 2020; 26,000 km). The build date for the car was April 2017 and registered in Aug 2017. The battery I had was a Sebang. I called out VW Assist and had the battery replaced under warranty (3 year warranty) within the hour. The battery they gave me was a Delkor LN3 70 EFB, which retails for $319. Just adding to the info here. Apparently I need to contact the dealer to get the electricals reset.