Battery Warranty Terms and conditions

[David43]

What do I need to do to maintain the 8 year battery warranty?

Do you need to have battery checks at volkswagen or can they be done at halfords autocentres?

David

[sidehaas]

The only battery check required as far as I'm aware is the one that was specified as a recall alongside the 3.2 update, and it's free. If you haven't had that done, book it in. You don't need anything else (apart from the two yearly service). Can't imagine why you would pay Halfords for a battery check.

[id3_life]

The only battery check required as far as I'm aware is the one that was specified as a recall alongside the 3.2 update, and it's free.

There are no battery checks required, I did the 3.2 update myself.
To maintain the 8-year warranty you shouldn’t:
-go over 100.000 miles
-tamper with the battery (open it up/etc.)
-abuse it (dc charge daily to 100% for fun)
-set fire to it
-submerge it in water
Basically common sense stuff but nothing about mandatory health checks.

[sidehaas]

The only battery check required as far as I'm aware is the one that was specified as a recall alongside the 3.2 update, and it's free.

There are no battery checks required, I did the 3.2 update myself.
To maintain the 8-year warranty you shouldn’t:
-go over 100.000 miles
-tamper with the battery (open it up/etc.)
-abuse it (dc charge daily to 100% for fun)
-set fire to it
-submerge it in water
Basically common sense stuff but nothing about mandatory health checks.

OK thanks. I assume youre a VW dealer or tech then? There is a battery check, it was a separate recall undertaken alongside the 3.2 update but I'll take your word for it that it doesn't affect the warranty.
I didn't think there were any warranty constraints on how you charge the car. How would they determine what constituted abuse? I know VW out guidance about battery care on the Internet, but it's just guidance and I've never seen VW mention it in respect of the warranty.

[id3_life]

OK thanks. I assume youre a VW dealer or tech then? There is a battery check, it was a separate recall undertaken alongside the 3.2 update but I'll take your word for it that it doesn't affect the warranty.
I didn't think there were any warranty constraints on how you charge the car. How would they determine what constituted abuse? I know VW out guidance about battery care on the Internet, but it's just guidance and I've never seen VW mention it in respect of the warranty.

Just a customer, I did the 3.2 update myself and then took the car for its service, asked for any recall or battery check, dealer said no, so it was just brake fluid/cabin filter.
VW does mention battery care/abuse respective to warranty:
"Warranty against Battery Energy Content Degradation...
...The reduction in battery energy content must not have been caused by factors outside the Manufacturer’s control including, but not limited to:
....the high voltage battery not being used, handled, charged or maintained as recommended by the Manufacturer in the owner's manual;...."
Source: https://www.volkswagen.co.uk/en/owners- ... terms.html
The battery health check shows exactly how you've been using the battery (amount of DC charging/time you let the car sit at 100% before using it/etc.)

[sidehaas]

Was your car built on 3.1? I don't think anyone else has ever had them option to do 3.2 OTA (I assume that's what you mean). The battery check recall applied to all cars that had a recall for 3.2 at the dealer.

[Idee3]

Mine has also done OTA updates from new, including 3.2 and currently on 3.7.

It has had its first service without any extra work being done other than a free safety check (alongside the £300 service!)

[id3_life]

Was your car built on 3.1? I don't think anyone else has ever had them option to do 3.2 OTA (I assume that's what you mean). The battery check recall applied to all cars that had a recall for 3.2 at the dealer.

I bought it as 3.1.0.
I have updated to 3.2 OTA and then to 3.7 OTA.
It has only been to the dealer for its normal service (pollen & brake fluid), no recalls.
There was a recall for the older ID3s with the AGM 12V batteries, you would get a brand new EFB 12V battery free of charge along with the 2.4 update as part of the recall.

[DraxxMenvone]

Hi folks. Hope it’s ok to jump on the back of this post.

I’m looking at buying a 2020 business pro. It’s CAT S repaired and the price reflects this. The car is currently at VW getting the 3.2 update with a new 12v. My question is, does anyone know if the battery warranty is void if the car is an insurance write off? I’ve struggled to get any sense out of VW HQ whatsoever and my local main dealer isn’t returning calls.

Thanks for any help!

PS I currently drive an 11 year old previously written off CAT S E-Up!

[id3_life]

All warranty is automatically void once insurance writes off the car. Could be a damaged wing, it doesn’t matter. The only way for warranty to be valid would be if VW themselves did the repair and subsequent inspection of the car but the cost would be so high that it would defeat the purpose of buying a cat s car in the first place.
My advice is forget about any warranty and enjoy the saving.

[sidehaas]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

[DraxxMenvone]

All warranty is automatically void once insurance writes off the car. Could be a damaged wing, it doesn’t matter. The only way for warranty to be valid would be if VW themselves did the repair and subsequent inspection of the car but the cost would be so high that it would defeat the purpose of buying a cat s car in the first place.
My advice is forget about any warranty and enjoy the saving.

Thanks for your reply. A lot of folks tell me that warranty is voided if the car is written off but I can’t find anything about accident damage with regard to specifically battery warranty. If the car I’m looking at gets a clean bill of health after the 2.3 update, I’ll likely buy it. As you say, the savings make it worthwhile. This one is £3k less than similarly specced cars of its age and mileage.

[DraxxMenvone]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

Many thanks. I have an OBD and Car Scanner pro. Do you have any links to instructions to obtain the cell voltages and max capacity please? I’ve always struggled with the Carscanner interface!

[Scratch]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

"My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.”

That’s an interesting comment, which I tend to agree with. It does bring up the issue of how long the main car battery is. Other manufacturers offer five or seven year warranties, even the Cupra Born is five now. What is it about VW that they only feel that 3 years is OK? What aren’t they as confident as, at the very least, Cupra?

[sidehaas]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

Many thanks. I have an OBD and Car Scanner pro. Do you have any links to instructions to obtain the cell voltages and max capacity please? I’ve always struggled with the Carscanner interface!

Just go to the carscanner 'dashboard' and scroll through the default pages in it. I think the info you want is on pages between 8 and 12 ish from memory.

[sidehaas]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

"My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.”

That’s an interesting comment, which I tend to agree with. It does bring up the issue of how long the main car battery is. Other manufacturers offer five or seven year warranties, even the Cupra Born is five now. What is it about VW that they only feel that 3 years is OK? What aren’t they as confident as, at the very least, Cupra?

I don't know, but the extended warranty doesn't cost much - about £250pa - so in the context of overall cost of a car it doesn't seem a major thing to me.
I think some of the longer warranties - I don't know about Cupra - have time based exclusions. For example Hyundai exclude 12V battery issues after 2 years, and they tend to fail a lot, so some owners seem to go and buy and fit new 12V batteries themselves or at an independent. I've heard anecdotally that the MG4 warranty has a lot of exclusions. So these warranties are not necessarily all directly comparable. But I agree a 5 year new car VW warranty would be nice

[Scratch]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

"My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.”

That’s an interesting comment, which I tend to agree with. It does bring up the issue of how long the main car warranty is. Other manufacturers offer five or seven year warranties, even the Cupra Born is five now. What is it about VW that they only feel that 3 years is OK? Why aren’t they as confident as, at the very least, Cupra?

Amended due to predictive text stupidity. Can’t wait for full AI Interventions.

[DraxxMenvone]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

Many thanks. I have an OBD and Car Scanner pro. Do you have any links to instructions to obtain the cell voltages and max capacity please? I’ve always struggled with the Carscanner interface!

Just go to the carscanner 'dashboard' and scroll through the default pages in it. I think the info you want is on pages between 8 and 12 ish from memory.

Many thanks. I’ll see if I can test it on my E-Up before I go and see the iD3.

[DraxxMenvone]

There is no evidence of MEB batteries failing suddenly or degrading to anything like the extent that the 70% limit will be reached anyway, even at high mileage. There has been a recall programme on 2020-2022 cars to check battery performance and replace any cells that had defects too. If buying a car with no battery warranty I would just ask if you can plug a basic OBD reader in first. You can use the carscanner app to look at maximum capacity in wh, and at a bar chart of the cell voltages. I would say you're wanting a max capacity of something over 50000 (ideally over 52-53000) and no individual cells having voltages that are significantly out of line with those around them. That should give confidence there is nothing fundamentally wrong with that battery that could cause excess deg in future. (A row of around 8 cells or so that all have a voltage a bit higher or lower than those around them is ok. That just shows the car has had a module replaced under the recall programme. The new module has slightly different capacity than the rest so max and min voltages reached during operation are slightly different, this is the case on both of our cars).

My personal view now is that the main car warranty is much more valuable than the battery warranty. Of course others may disagree but I just think the chances of wanting to invoke the battery warranty are negligible.

Many thanks. I have an OBD and Car Scanner pro. Do you have any links to instructions to obtain the cell voltages and max capacity please? I’ve always struggled with the Carscanner interface!

Just go to the carscanner 'dashboard' and scroll through the default pages in it. I think the info you want is on pages between 8 and 12 ish from memory.

Am I looking at the right values here on my E-Up? Minimum and maximum voltage of the HV BATTERY? Maximum 3.8v. Minimum 3.79v. I’m guessing this is cells rather than modules.

[sidehaas]

Many thanks. I have an OBD and Car Scanner pro. Do you have any links to instructions to obtain the cell voltages and max capacity please? I’ve always struggled with the Carscanner interface!

Just go to the carscanner 'dashboard' and scroll through the default pages in it. I think the info you want is on pages between 8 and 12 ish from memory.

Am I looking at the right values here on my E-Up? Minimum and maximum voltage of the HV BATTERY?

e-up is on a completely different platform so will not show the same set of data.
Voltage data looks like this:
(The module containing cell ~87 in our ID3 was replaced under the recall programme although I think this was a fairly mild case as I never noticed any effect on range or performance).