Mk4 Battery Recommendation

[Buxty]

Hiya folks,

Which battery would you recommend for a 1.5T MK4? Even with SOC level set with ForScan and the battery being charged every now and then I keep getting odd electrical niggles so thinking of changing the battery. 
 

Is there a recommended one or just get the biggest that’ll fit?

 

seems like Yuasa think a YBX7096 will fit and has a higher CCA rating?

[Karbonfaiba]

Bosch S5 A08 AGM Car battery 12V 70Ah Type 096 (with the 5 year warranty)

Should be the best battery you can potentially fit, however if you are swapping from EFB you will need to reprogram using Forscan.

[unofix]

As factory fitted to my 2.0 diesel:  Goliath Type G096EFB

70Ah  680A

When it needs to be replaced I will be using either Yuasa or Bosch

 

 

[Buxty]

4 hours ago, Karbonfaiba said:

Bosch S5 A08 AGM Car Battery 12V 70Ah Type 096 (with the 5 year warranty)

Should be the best battery you can potentially fit, however if you are swapping from EFB you will need to reprogram using Forscan.

Cheers chaps, any fitment issues you know of dimensions wise?

Also I assume no issues going from EFB to AGM aside from ForScan config? All the battery finders online suggest EFB ones. 

[Karbonfaiba]

Type 096 is the size standard you need, however it's always good practice to take a tape measure to your own battery - just to double check - as nearly all websites list the dimensions anyway, plus details on hold down notches and diameter of the terminals - those need to be correct or you won't be able to clamp down tight enough with your existing terminal clamps.

This is my own planned upgrade path (when the time comes to replace my OEM battery) but I do plan to fit an uprated battery, rather then letting Ford replace it under service advisement since you typically don't get new batteries under parts warranty anyway.

I believe ForScan has AGM batteries listed in the capacity pre-sets but if you want to list your procedure with screenshots when you can, please do!

Technically the AGM will need slightly higher voltage from the alternator so the BMS (or charge controller) programming must effect the charging system to say for sure that you won't get any long term problems.

Ideally I would test what your alternator is outputting before programming (by measuring battery terminals with the engine running) which should be 14.4v – 14.5v with EFB and after programming; I would hope that to be 14.7v – 14.8v. That would inspire the most confidence for me. Without the correct charging voltage coming from the alternator; you would be under charging the AGM battery, leading to fast capacity fade and a short battery life, squandering any benefits you would have gained uprating it in the first place. Nothing is ever simple in these modern computer cars!

[Tizer]

1 hour ago, Buxty said:

Also I assume no issues going from EFB to AGM aside from ForScan config? All the battery finders online suggest EFB ones. 

I don't know whether there are any dimension problems but I'm not sure if you can use FORScan to change the Configuration to AGM on that particular car or not, there was never an Factory Fitted option for AGM on the Mk4 cars as far as I know.

I don't have an Extended Licence at the moment so I can't check.

[alexp999]

My car was putting 14.8-15V through my factory fit EFB when it was low. Settled back to 14.5V on average now. The alternator is definitely capable of it but I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to verify the car recognises an AGM battery unless it just a never drops below 14.7 charging voltage?

[Tizer]

14 minutes ago, alexp999 said:

My car was putting 14.8-15V through my factory fit EFB when it was low. Settled back to 14.5V on average now. The alternator is definitely capable of it but I’m not sure how easy it’s going to be to verify the car recognises an AGM battery unless it just a never drops below 14.7 charging voltage?

It sometimes goes to the low 14's and does different things when charging in either the Regeneration or Refresh modes rather than the Conventional one, which is not very often but does happen when the PCM/BCM decide.

I have done a lot of Live Monitoring and although I won't pretend to be an expert on the matter but I would imagine that it's not just the Voltage that is optimised for the different battery types.

Whether it would make much difference in real life is anyone's guess.

[alexp999]

7 hours ago, unofix said:

As factory fitted to my 2.0 diesel:  Goliath Type G096EFB

70Ah  690A

When it needs to be replaced I will be using either Yuasa or Bosch

 

 

You had a Goliath battery from factory? Ford normally fit Ford branded Varta batteries. 

[unofix]

1 minute ago, alexp999 said:

You had a Goliath battery from factory?

Perhaps I should rephrase that.

When I took delivery from Arnold Clark, the car was 3 months old and was to have been their demonstrator, but was not used (possibly due to COVID restrictions ?).

It came with that battery fitted and I assumed that would be what had been factory fitted.

[Buxty]

Looks like AGM is supported on this one! I did change the option from Varta 43Ah to 60Ah (as fitted) and driving today S/S has been flawless even with a SOC target of 80% so maybe that’s done it!

[Tizer]

2 hours ago, Buxty said:

Looks like AGM is supported on this one! I did change the option from Varta 43Ah to 60Ah (as fitted) and driving today S/S has been flawless even with a SOC target of 80% so maybe that’s done it!

I would be Interested to hear if it stays that way. My battery was programmed in as a 43/390 as well even though it is the same size as your one and it is the same with a few other peoples cars.

I don't know why Ford did that.

[unofix]

Well using my recently purchased vLinker FD dongle I decided to check my battery whilst driving home at 30mph. I had noticed earlier today that keyless entry was no longer working on any of the passenger doors.

To my surprise no matter how fast or slow I drove, or whether the heated seats were on full or turned off the charging current remained at a constant 1.0 Amp, despite the SOC being only 59%. In my battery charging settings I changed it from 80% to 95% more than a year ago, so maybe this is telling me the battery is coming to the end of its life.

[alexp999]

Please remember that the options listed in forscan are just interpretations by the developer of the bit or hex that seems to be related. 
 

We don’t know for sure how changing those values is interpreted by the BMS firmware on each model of car or in conjunction with other values.  
 

The asbuilt setting is probably correct for the factory fitted battery. Also even if the value for agm is correct if the firmware never expects an agm battery it could ignore that setting. I still think it’s best to stick with EFB on this car. When I need to change my battery, I’m probably just going to put an 096 in for the extra capacity, reset the bms and let the car figure it out rather than trying to work out with no real knowledge what value could be changed on forscan and what the implications could be. 

[Tizer]

46 minutes ago, unofix said:

Well using my recently purchased vLinker FD dongle I decided to check my battery whilst driving home at 30mph. I had noticed earlier today that keyless entry was no longer working on any of the passenger doors.

To my surprise no matter how fast or slow I drove, or whether the heated seats were on full or turned off the charging current remained at a constant 1.0 Amp, despite the SOC being only 59%. In my battery charging settings I changed it from 80% to 95% more than a year ago, so maybe this is telling me the battery is coming to the end of its life.

The PCM seems to control the Field Current Duty Cycle.

With the Engine running and just the HVAC on it might be around 15%. If you switch even a high power accessory on it will go up to maybe double that but the charging Current and Voltage will stay the same except for less than a second while it adjusts. 

The PID for it is in the PCM, not the BCM where the other ones are but you can monitor PID's from both at the same time using "All" instead of only one module but there will be a slight time lag in what you see.

On a related theme, what Minimum Time Delay are you getting with that Adaptor. My old OBDLink MX is normally under 10 ms, often around 6.

[unofix]

Thanks for the info. 👍

3 minutes ago, Tizer said:

On a related theme, what Minimum Time Delay are you getting with that Adaptor. My old OBDLink MX is normally under 10 ms, often around 6.

It seems fairly constant at 10ms, although the first time it connected it was 16ms

[Wino]

11 hours ago, Tizer said:

I would be Interested to hear if it stays that way. My Battery was programmed in as a 43/390 as well even though it is the same size as your one and it is the same with a few other peoples cars.

I don't know why Ford did that.

I've found that when I changed our battery values that it worked like you would expect it too but once the charging system/BMS catches up it reverts back to normal.

[Tizer]

16 hours ago, unofix said:

Thanks for the info. 👍

It seems fairly constant at 10ms, although the first time it connected it was 16ms

Thanks for confirming that, It seems to be on par with my OBDLink MX so if I need to replace it at any time then the vLinker will not be a downgrade.

I was also Interested that your battery Temperature PID was there.

My one used to be but just before my warranty was up a lot of my Modules were updated including the PCM and BCM. That also coincided with an update to FORScan and ever since then that PID has disappeared despite creating a new Profile and further updates to FORScan, so a Module update must have removed it on my car.

I'll leave you to Interpret the Live Data yourself, the only thing I would add is that there is a PID for  Charging Mode and although it always starts in Conventional, occasionally to will charge in Refresh or Regeneration and the charge will be different. 

 

[Buxty]

Few days in, -2c today and Stop/Start working like a champion still…watch this space!

[Buxty]

There we go, back to normal with no S/S 😝

[Tizer]

40 minutes ago, Buxty said:

There we go, back to normal with no S/S 😝

I have read posts elsewhere where people have changed their battery Type to both a higher and a lower one than what was fitted and they all claimed that it fixed the problem, but it only did so for a short time.

I'm sure that doing a BMS reset does the same.

[Buxty]

1 minute ago, Tizer said:

I have read posts elsewhere where people have changed their Battery Type to both a higher and a lower one than what was fitted and they all claimed that it fixed the problem, but it only did so for a short time.

I'm sure that doing a BMS reset does the same.

I think you’re right, it probably even resets it when you change it!

[Buxty]

I may just get the bigger battery, current one is 175mm high and a bigger one is 190mm…the bar seems to be right angled so don’t think it’ll fit? But I suppose I could space the bar up a bit from the bottom if no one has any other ideas?

 

Noticed I also have a DTC reappearing  about an open circuit on the drivers puddle light. Would that cause it to drain or just cut power to that circuit?

[unofix]

8 hours ago, Buxty said:

about an open circuit on the drivers puddle light.

Fit a replacement lamp and that will probably sort the issue.