The Garage 289

focus Batteries 34
it’s a hard
knock life
. . . for batteries
Batteries have got to be robust and hardy to cope
with the demands from a car, The Garage’s Richard
Barnett looks at just how hard their life can be.
The power behind
so much of a car’s
functions is the battery,
but its role
has become more
important as electronics
had played an increasingly
large role in how that car
performs, whether it’s supplying
power to the engine
management system or the
electronic power steering, or
keeping the entertainment
systems running as they
should.
The battery’s life is a tough
one, and motorists (and,
let’s face it, workshops) only
get into battery mode when
one needs replacing.
All too often workshops
bodyswerve the idea of a
battery health check, and
for no apparent reason other
than laziness, yet motorists,
whose desire to be left
stranded is even less than it
used to be, would surely be
grateful to know their car’s
battery is on its last legs and
that the right course of action
would be to replace it.
According to Banner Batteries,
product technology
is unsurprisingly) being
driven by environmental
concerns just as much as
the car’s power demands,
be that greater comfort and
convenience, or a reduction
in emissions as well as improved
fuel economy. From
the latter car makers continue
to introduce more hybrid
vehicles and with that has
come a change in the make
of the car battery aftermarket.
“In essence vehicles can
now be categorized into being
micro hybrid, mild hybrid
and full hybrid,” Banner
says.
As car battery demands
have changed, batteries
have evolved and today absorbed
glass mat (AGM)
and enhanced flooded battery
(EFB) types don’t hold
the mystery they did several
years ago. That means
storage, handling and fitting
needs to be approached differently
– AGM batteries,
for example, will recharge
completely in three hours, a
result of having a large plate
surface and low internal resistance,
but that charging
means using a smart or intelligent
charger – a constant
current charger must never
be used, Banner advises.
With the rise of AGM and
EFB types, the need to fit exactly
the right replacement
– and not a loose approxi-
mation – becomes more
important than ever. If the
wrong type is fitted it will
have a shorter than intended
life but, equally importantly,
the workshop could damage
its reputation by not supplying
the correct type. And
when those batteries are
replaced the active energy
management system should
be re-set because an old battery
has different charging
from a new one.
With more and more electrical
demands placed on a
car’s battery (including stop/
start systems) the need to fit
the correct-specification battery
is more important than
ever and, as Yuasa points
out, it’s no longer a quick ‘fit
and forget’ task, and instead
becomes time-consuming.
In some cases there’s the
quandary of finding the battery
and once found can take
some time to fit – in the Audi
Q5’s case, up to 90 minutes,
Yuasa says.
Using the Yuasa look-up
facility workshops can be
sure they are fitting a battery
of the correct specification
via fit.yausa.com. Putting in
the car’s registration number
or VIN will show which
type should be fitted, along
with fitting instructions, battery
location and estimated
fitting time.
The rise of the stop/start
system has brought its own
problems to the aftermarket,
especially because only
batteries designed specifically
for that purpose should
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