Can anyone tell me, either from memory or by measuring, the size of a mk2 battery please. I'm not with the car atm but would like to order a new battery asap. Unless anyone can say its the same size as a lupo battery?

083 or 063

063 on mine

Thank you men. Thats perfect

Any one have expereince with Bosch Silver-Calcium batteries?

yep. 5 year guarantee. Never had any issues till it started to wear out, 3 years old and replaced with no problems at halfords.

but had suffered a few total discharges over the summer due to leaving radio on etc.

Do you find it turns the engine over better on a cold start? I'm having issues with this atm, and I know my battery must be getting on in years (cant remember EVER buying a new battery!) and hoped the additional quoated 15% starting power would help. Plus the mega stereo will need some juice. I assume you have no problems with charging Ceri? I read about possible compatability issues, but this was with new cars with OEM silver batteries fitting older, NiCad batteries.

i try to get varta batterys if poss...seem to be really good

Any one have expereince with Bosch Silver-Calcium batteries?

My mate works in a garage and slates them. I've had a 2nd hand one in a mismatched pair on the transit for 2 years and had no problems, even after it's been drained flat and charged back up about 4 times.

Bosch S3 in mine very good battery, just the alarm draining it...

Apparently Bosch are just re-branded Varta anyway. Your just paying for the name. Have found a Bosch for £55 where they sell for £115 on the street.

Yeti, whats your mates problem with them?

got a bosch from gsf with a 4yr warranty for 50 quid its excellent never let me down

Basch what though? I'm specifically looking at the Silver-Calcium for the additional starting power

Apparently Bosch are just re-branded Varta anyway. Your just paying for the name. Have found a Bosch for £55 where they sell for £115 on the street.

Yeti, whats your mates problem with them?

He reckon's they're prone to dying early, they keep having them back under warranty.

I normally just get 2nd hand batteries from the scrappy. £15 for a polo battery with a month's warranty on :)

its a silver calcium part no 971aa0633 description battery bosch 44ah i presume thats 44 amp cost 49.20

44ah means 44 amp hours - the current it can supply for an hour.

Thats a pretty good price, I'll investigate those then

i dont undersdtand all that stuff tbh haha but me mate said its a decent battery and its not let me down yet plus the cars garaged up at the mo so theres been a couple of weeks in between starting it at times if it goes wrong its on a 4yr warranty so i,ll take it back

isnt it the cold cranking thats the important bit?

Can you not fit a bigger batt in a mk2 then?

To a point steve, yes. But if you have lots of added extras e.g. stereo, leccy windows etc then a battery with more charge is going to be benificial. However, its the cold cranking power i want

Harris. You could fit a bigger battery, but not in the standard place (inside scuttle in front of the driver)

Can you not fit a bigger batt in a mk2 then?

Got in it's standard position, no, the scuttle's rather tight. Though to be fair, id you wanted to go to extremes, there's probably room to weld a tray onto the inner wing over the gearbox like on a Golf/Rocco.

That's fair enough then, I understand why you just want a decent batt of the correct size then :) all good learning

I had one of the old Bosch silver batteries on mine. It came on the crashed G40 that was an engine donor back in 2002, and got left for 6 months whilst I broke the car - then needed a battery one day, charged it up and threw it on. It lasted 'til 2008, even despite regularly leaving the car standing for 6 weeks at a time. I bought a Halfords replacement as it was all I could lay my hands on at the time (thank god for the trade card!), and I'm on my second one under warranty...