Sounds maybe like it just needs to be told it has a new battery then... Could be that it holds information on charge/discharge cycles and current drop off to shut systems down faster as it ages.

Good to know for us sootchucker owners that make batteries work harder.

have a look at this - it might help . . . .
http://wiki.ross-tech.com/wiki/index...ry_Replacement

My problem appears to have been down to a faulty brake light switch!!

Frigging things are too bloody clever for themselves!!!

had a bit of a laboured start a few days ago, this morning just a ticking noise, Mmi screen comes up slowly.

Ive long thought my battery was responsible for the "start engine within 3 minutes" message that i get now and again, but IVF said the battery was fine in january when i asked them to replace it.

baby was due yesterday, so on borrowed time and now have to decide if to replace it myself, or get the car started and get down to ivf.

What is likely to go wrong with the electrics if i change the battery without a backup power source, and anyone know what battery will fit in the D3, i want the highest power one i can get

i have vagcom so can probably fix electric errors and recode the battery myself

Eurocarparts link for the Bosch S5 battery, just make sure it fits first as it is the daddy of batteries

You need to enter the code battery15 for a 15% discount bringing the total to £113.17

Battery should be plug and play

As long as you don't short anything, you're good to go for the physical swap and re-code with VCDS.

thanks tony

All done, thanks guys
Europarts wasnt open today so got one in halfords the 019 model though rather than the 20, still a bosch s5 it looked fairly tight in there so thought the extra millimeters might not make it, with hindsight probably would have but didnt want to risk it

no issues afterwards, there wasnt a coding for bosch so left it how it was , just changed the serial number, reset the date and the windows and all looks like its working fine.

will have to wait and see if something else is the root cause

Funnily enough I've been looking to get a new battery for my D2 (PF S8) as although it's fine it is also quite old (nearly 10 years - I fitted it myself!) and I suspect it could fail any time.
(Luckily with the PF D2 all you do is swap them over, nothing else to do except re-enter the radio code. :D)

However I do have a PDF document downloaded from Bosch that details what batteries go with what car - I'll attach it here. As far as I can see the D3 has basically the same size battery as my D2 S8, and the Halfords 019 is correct; 020 would be too long. The standard size seems to be 353 long, 175 wide and 190 tall (mm).
I currently have a Bosch Silver 8A (part 0093 S5 880) and the recommendation now is for an S6 002 (same as for D3) or S5 013 (0092 S5 0130) so I'll presumably go for the S5 013 which happens to have not only slightly higher capacity and CCA than my current battery, but actually more than the S6 as well!

Hope the document is useful, it's a few years old but covers a wide range of car makers. :cool: