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Focus battery, garage recommends a £120 battery!


Bunty
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 I've had a couple of problems with the fitting of my dashcams.  Twice it has drained the battery as it didn't turn off as expected,  it was not hard-wired in as requested, it's not turning off when cigar lighter is left in.   The car went to the garage for a few days, asked them to check the battery, it was alright. In the early evening, the car was returned to me with the dash cam plugged into the cigar lighter, unbeknownst to me.  Two or three days later, the battery was flat, obviously drained due to the dashcam being left on. I'm still waiting for the garage to finish hard writing the dashcam, it's taken 3 days.  A bad choice of garage, RAC recommended.

The garage says the car needs a new battery, test shows under 3/4, one suitable for my Focus, it will cost me £120 – really?  I don't think so, the battery was working well before the problem with the dashcam and I just bought a new battery, a Powerline, as a standby.  I've used Powerline batteries before and found them excellent, and half the price.  Would you pay £120 for a battery for your Focus, they are having a laugh.

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1 hour ago, Bunty said:

Would you pay £120 for a battery for your Focus

Depends very much on the model and age of the Focus. As it happens £120 is about the standard price for most models and £165 is also quite a common price.

Once a battery has been substantially drained then no amount of charging will ever get it back to full capacity.

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I paid just under £100 for ours but that was back when Covid first appeared early 2020 ? 

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Look up Tayna batteries, cheapest on the internet

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5 minutes ago, 59bhp said:

Look up Tayna batteries, cheapest on the internet

They do in general offer good prices but sometimes a Ford main dealer is actually cheaper

For example:

YBX7096 Yuasa EFB Start Stop Car battery 12V 75Ah

Tayna Batteries £113.93 plus £7.99 including VAT = £121.92

Arnold Clark Ford dealer £119.98 free delivery, including VAT

Not much in it, so to be honest it just comes down to personal preference

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I recall that mine was around the £100 price tag when I got it a few years ago, so yeah damn expensive things to replace.

The one I had before that was around £50 and smaller in size, but I'd only ended up with it due to a mixup and it turned out to not be suitable at all. So as above my understanding is that around £100-120 is standard.

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3 hours ago, unofix said:

They do in general offer good prices but sometimes a Ford main dealer is actually cheaper

For example:

YBX7096 Yuasa EFB Start Stop Car Battery 12V 75Ah

Tayna Batteries £113.93 plus £7.99 including VAT = £121.92

Arnold Clark Ford dealer £119.98 free delivery, including VAT

Not much in it, so to be honest it just comes down to personal preference

The battery on Arnold Clark eBay shows a 3-year warranty.

The battery on the Tayna website shows a 4-year guarantee.

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10 minutes ago, YOG said:

The battery on Arnold Clark ebay shows a 3-year warranty.

The battery on the Tayna website shows a 4-year guarantee.

That's very puzzling, at the end of the day I would of expected that Yuasa would be the ones providing the actual warranty/guarantee. It should be the exact same battery, it is from the same manufacturer and it has the same part number.  It would be good to know what the answer is.

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The fundamental issue is that your dashcam is plugged into your 12v socket, which, is live 100% of the time, a truly awful design. I had same issue and installed a separate 12v socket which was wired that it only came 'live' when ignition was on, hence, when you leave car, it's off, like it should have been if Ford had a brain cell to work on!

715099146_new12vsocket.thumb.jpg.200d33861ff667f3cac8affdceda72e3.jpg

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Hard wiring appears to be the solution

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1 minute ago, Andyr55 said:

Hard wiring appears to be the solution

As long as it is hard wired to a supply that is switched off when key is removed, it's certainly one solution...

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You can find a find different 096 or 100 calcium batteries suitable for Mk2 Focus on eBay for £60-75.  Some have further discount codes as well.   

Only trouble is the service is shocking.  Just been massively let down by one I ordered last weekend.  Was apparently dispatched on Monday.  Put in a 'missing item' claim on Friday and was told today the battery wasn't even in stock, let alone dispatched. 😠

Just looked at feedback for another seller claiming 'next day delivery' where all the negative feedback suggests they're using a 3+ day courier...

So I'm not sure what to do for mine now.  eBay is the cheapest by far, but I can't afford to lose another week to an incompetent seller.

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1 hour ago, TomsFocus said:

You can find a find different 096 or 100 calcium batteries suitable for Mk2 Focus on ebay for £60-75.  Some have further discount codes as well.   

Only trouble is the service is shocking.  Just been massively let down by one I ordered last weekend.  Was apparently dispatched on Monday.  Put in a 'missing item' claim on Friday and was told today the battery wasn't even in stock, let alone dispatched. 😠

Just looked at feedback for another seller claiming 'next day delivery' where all the negative feedback suggests they're using a 3+ day courier...

So I'm not sure what to do for mine now.  Ebay is the cheapest by far, but I can't afford to lose another week to an incompetent seller.

use these matey never had a problem next day delivery too..

https://batterygroup.co.uk/

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3 minutes ago, TomsFocus said:

What do we reckon?

Go for it Tom.

Remember you're not keeping the car, if it only lasts two years no one can complain at that price.

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2 hours ago, unofix said:

Go for it Tom.

Remember you're not keeping the car, if it only lasts two years no one can complain at that price.

Still 20% more expensive than the one that didn't turn up lol.

Think I will go for it though.  I have used Tayna before.   Albeit through the eBay store so I get some cashback and it's easier to open 'missing item' cases if necessary.

May get the jump starter out while I'm waiting to see if the EasyFuel funnel is in the boot and check bulbs and wipers etc just in case I need to order anything else before MOT.

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Yeah they are expensive. I was considering replacing the battery as my stop start doesnt work, which I assume is a battery issue as when I reset the battery managment the stop start will work again for a little while. But not worth the money just for stop start, not even sure how much fuel it even saves lol.  Car starts straight away and survives not being used a while in winter so the battery cant be that bad.

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7 hours ago, Pigeon12 said:

Yeah they are expensive. I was considering replacing the battery as my stop start doesnt work, which I assume is a battery issue as when I reset the battery managment the stop start will work again for a little while. But not worth the money just for stop start, not even sure how much fuel it even saves lol.  Car starts straight away and survives not being used a while in winter so the battery cant be that bad.

start/stop won't be cured by buying a new battery. There is a comprehensive reason why it doesn't work, which I give full credit to @unofixfor posting many times, I happened to bookmark one once...

 

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Wait so they have stop start for 'the environment' then disable stop start at 70 percent soc but then cap the battery at 80 percent for 'the environment'  so it hardly ever works. Am I wrong in thinking thats absolutley mental lol. I mean surley 70 percent isnt even a bad percentage in the first place to start disabling things?

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1 minute ago, Pigeon12 said:

..Am I wrong in thinking thats absolutley mental lol....

That's entirely a correct summation of the governments, 'net zero' policy!!

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8 minutes ago, Pigeon12 said:

Wait so they have stop start for 'the environment' then disable stop start at 70 percent soc but then cap the battery at 80 percent for 'the environment'  so it hardly ever works. Am I wrong in thinking thats absolutley mental lol. I mean surley 70 percent isnt even a bad percentage in the first place to start disabling things?

It’s only there for homologation. 

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The true reason for Stop/Start is to get the vehicle through the emissions test to be given type approval.

In the real world (not the test laboratory) S/S was never intended to save fuel and at best reduces emissions by switching off the engine while standing still for long periods of time. Clever though the S/S technology is, and it monitors approximately 114 different vehicle conditions it can not predict the future !!

If you come to a stop and S/S turns off the engine while you are not moving and are stuck in traffic for 5 minutes then it might overall reduce the vehicles emissions. However because S/S has no way of predicting how long you are going to be stopped then if it switches the engine off and then 10 seconds later you want to move and it has to restart the engine then overall the emissions will be more than if the engine had remained running.

Add to the fact that people all over the world are throwing away perfectly good car batteries in there 10's of thousands just so they can keep S/S working, it can hardly be claimed to be environmentally friendly !!

Stop/Start is worse than the VW diesel emissions scandal. It is designed purely for vehicles to meet the governments unachievable emissions standards. It is backed and approved by the same governments who impose the standards, and makes it look to the public that the governments around the world are taking action 🙄

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2 hours ago, unofix said:

It is backed and approved by the same governments who impose the standards, and makes it look to the public that the governments around the world are taking action 🙄

You mean it's just greenwashing? Well, who'd have thought it?😃

First time I experienced S/S was on a Land Rover we briefly had some years back. There was a big anti-SUV backlash at the time and in addition to the S/S the thing was festooned with stickers proudly proclaiming "Carbon Offset" as the CO2 was supposedly cancelled out by tree planting.

Seems very funny now when SUVs are almost de rigeur!

 

 

 

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@unofixhas hit the nail on the head. Attempts to meet increasingly stringent emission standards are subject to the law of diminishing returns and have been for several years imho.

I think the only ways forward now are synthetic fuels derived from CO2, Hydrogen or all electric.

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