Vauxhall Corsa main dealer battery change, how much?

Adam · 20 Jan 2019 at 13:25

I was speaking to my elderly neighbour this morning who is in his 80's. He has a 3 year old Corsa (something like a 1.4 ecoflex energy) and the warranty expired in November 2018. He had an issue starting the car last week and called the AA who diagnosed the problem as a faulty battery. The AA guy said not to buy the battery from him as Vauxhall are likely to offer him a special price as these batteries are almost treated as a consumable and don't last very long (not sure how true this is).

Anyway, the AA guy got the car started and he took the car to Vauxhall who have charged him £250 fitted for the new battery. That seemed pretty steep to me as I've always paid around £50-60 for a decent quality Bosch battery although the last one I bought was a couple of years ago now.

He was told by Vauxhall that a special battery is required and there is a very limited window to change the battery (15 seconds he said, again not sure how accurate this is) or there are issues with the electrics. I'm sure he would have had to enter the security code for his radio but I'm not sure what other issues would have occurred.

I didn't say anything at the time to him but my first impression was that he paid well over the odds. However, I've just looked at euro car parts and a battery for a similar car on autotrader is £244.99 for a Lion branded battery up to £329.99 for a Bosch branded one. That makes £250 fitted seem quite reasonable!

What do you think?

[TW]Fox · 20 Jan 2019 at 13:36

Its probably an AGM battery which is coded to the car - in which case £250 seems very good!

Bear · 20 Jan 2019 at 13:36

Does his car have stop/start? If so then it’s probably right, AGM batteries are pretty expensive compared to your normal run of the mill lead acid

Dis86 · 20 Jan 2019 at 13:54

The 15 second window will be so there's no code resets required.

blueboy2001 · 20 Jan 2019 at 16:50

The AA man probably didn’t have one suitable on his van. They have a battery that connects to the lighter socket to keep the radio memory active whilst they change the battery.

I got the AA to replace a battery a couple of years ago. They charged £105. The battery would have been about £70 online for the Yuasa they fitted but I was on my way 40 minutes after calling them out. They took the old one away which saved me a trip to the tip and faffing outside changing it myself in the middle of winter. I thought this was good value all things considered.

Orionaut · 20 Jan 2019 at 19:53

Adam said:
I was speaking to my elderly neighbour this morning who is in his 80's. He has a 3 year old Corsa (something like a 1.4 ecoflex energy) and the warranty expired in November 2018. He had an issue starting the car last week and called the AA who diagnosed the problem as a faulty battery. The AA guy said not to buy the battery from him as Vauxhall are likely to offer him a special price as these batteries are almost treated as a consumable and don't last very long (not sure how true this is).

Anyway, the AA guy got the car started and he took the car to Vauxhall who have charged him £250 fitted for the new battery. That seemed pretty steep to me as I've always paid around £50-60 for a decent quality Bosch battery although the last one I bought was a couple of years ago now.

He was told by Vauxhall that a special battery is required and there is a very limited window to change the battery (15 seconds he said, again not sure how accurate this is) or there are issues with the electrics. I'm sure he would have had to enter the security code for his radio but I'm not sure what other issues would have occurred.

I didn't say anything at the time to him but my first impression was that he paid well over the odds. However, I've just looked at euro car parts and a battery for a similar car on autotrader is £244.99 for a Lion branded battery up to £329.99 for a Bosch branded one. That makes £250 fitted seem quite reasonable!

What do you think?

Isn't Stop/Start wonderful.

Over the three years it took to kill a £300 battery it must have saved nearly £10 worth of petrol.

Adam · 20 Jan 2019 at 20:32

Orionaut said:
Isn't Stop/Start wonderful.

Over the three years it took to kill a £300 battery it must have saved nearly £10 worth of petrol.

Haha I turn mine off every time I get in the car. It can be a bit jumpy with the DSG gearbox I find.

Well thanks for the explanation, I guess the AGM battery is the cause and why it's so much more expensive. I hadn't heard of them before so it doesn't seem the price was so bad either way.

Scania · 20 Jan 2019 at 21:47

I always turn off the stop start in my parters 1 Series, just don’t see the advantage in saving 0.5mpg or whatever it works out at over the strain on the car of numerous stop start cycles.

As said, why try to save £10 on fuel at the expense of a £300+ battery (and everything else) a false economy if ever there was one imo.

BUDFORCE · 20 Jan 2019 at 21:54

Orionaut said:
Isn't Stop/Start wonderful.

Over the three years it took to kill a £300 battery it must have saved nearly £10 worth of petrol.

...sums that up.

tom_nieto · 21 Jan 2019 at 08:44

The stop/start has mysteriously stopped functioning on both our 12 plate cars from different manufacturers with no fault found. I’ve not chased it too much!

tom_e · 21 Jan 2019 at 08:48

My AGM battery in the bike is about the same price as a normal Lead acid one roughly £50, what makes these ones so expensive?

Orionaut · 21 Jan 2019 at 08:59

tom_nieto said:
The stop/start has mysteriously stopped functioning on both our 12 plate cars from different manufacturers with no fault found. I’ve not chased it too much!

Most likely the ECM has decided that the battery can no longer cut it.

The battery management systems are often quite sensitive and will not engage stop/start until it thinks the battery has enough reserve charge.. This will not necessarily generate a fault code but it would be interesting to see what results you get using a conductance type battery tester (AKA a Midtronics tester, though there are other makes)

Jonnycoupe · 21 Jan 2019 at 09:51

Orionaut said:
Isn't Stop/Start wonderful.

Over the three years it took to kill a £300 battery it must have saved nearly £10 worth of petrol.

It might have pulled the car down a tax band though.

Nasher · 21 Jan 2019 at 10:15

tom_nieto said:
The stop/start has mysteriously stopped functioning on both our 12 plate cars from different manufacturers with no fault found. I’ve not chased it too much!

Such a **** technology purely for fudging emissions stats

The first thing people do when they get a car with it is disable it because its annoying and costs 100s to fix when it breaks.

tom_nieto · 21 Jan 2019 at 10:21

Orionaut said:
Most likely the ECM has decided that the battery can no longer cut it.

The battery management systems are often quite sensitive and will not engage stop/start until it thinks the battery has enough reserve charge.. This will not necessarily generate a fault code but it would be interesting to see what results you get using a conductance type battery tester (AKA a Midtronics tester, though there are other makes)

Brand new (correct) battery in the Fiat 500 didn't sort the problem.

@Nasher - agreed, but in heavy traffic it does serve a purpose I think. Electrification of inner city cars will be the best move anyway.