Hi guys,
My car’s not been starting very well for the past few weeks, and this morning there was no chance; flat battery. I suspect that during the weeks the car was off the road with the engine rebuild, the battery was probably flat for too long, and it’s knackered.
So, what’s the current feeling on the best replacement battery to fit? I understand the Bosch silver plus is no longer available
Brendan,
I had exactly the same problem over Crimbo and Ive already got a Silver Plus on the car
My car too was stood for about 6-7 weeks in October / November while it was back at the factory having a few tweeks
And then over Crimbo it died. It had been getting harder to start over a few weeks before then it just gave up totally
Charged it and it has been fine ever since [touch wood]
If I recall from when I found the Bosch battery it is equivalent to a Varta one just with different labeling.
Might be worth a try if the Bosch one is longer available!
Paul
Thanks Robbo. Here’s some gold stars for your effort
Don’t suppose you know exactly what labelling is on the Varta?
mmmmm… that time of year - mine died after 4 years of service beginning of Jan … Tried for Silver plus, as you say no longer manufactured and Bosch recommend the Silver (but it has same crank output as Halfrauds and doesnt have the neat featuires of the silver plus - charge remaining gizmo). Varta is a high crank alternative to the Bosch.
In the end I went to halfrauds (needed it in a rush), and Bought their calcium based Exige battery (massive crank output) - only problem was it was too big (size)… so much for their testing … changed it out for the halfrauds elise calcium version which is marginally higher crank than original battery and was on sale (�49 vs Varta Blue at around �70). No probs with my battery and fireup plus the intermittent stack light flicker has gone…
Cheers
M
Wey Hey Thanks for the stars
Try this link to VARTA
The link to the full car listing is HERE
I think the calcium-silver technology one is the same as the Bosch one!
The Elise(type 063) and Exige(type 065) are listed but I opted for the type 063 Bosch silver plus because the Exige is a type 063 as standard and the 065 is harder to fit.
Cheers for the stars
BTW I know quite a few Exigers have fitted the normal silver battery and noticed just as much improvement.
As escaper mentioned, prices vary a lot.
FYI my Silver plus with a 4yr guarantee was only �28!!!
So it might be worth shopping around.
Try Truckstop hawkes in Redditch where I got mine. they might still have a Silver plus in as they had about 4 when I bought mine and they said they didnt sell them that often!
Thanks again chaps. I’ve just had some good news, the service manager at Nick Whales has agreed to pick up the bill for a new battery as there’s a suspicion that may have failed to keep the battery charged up whilst they rebuilt the engine. Top banana
I’m feeling generous, so I’ve awarded Mr. Escaper some gold stars as well
Yep Ians a top bloke When mine had the same trouble over Xmas he got one of the mechanics to connect it up to the computer, check it over and reset the ECU FOC.
Its been running much better ever since.
The important bit from robbo’s pdf seems to be:
LOTUS EXIGE 01- 550 056 054 C10 065 560 077 060 D21 075 555 107 054 C7
LOL
As an FYI - a bigger battery will fit in if you want to get extra capacity, there is plenty of room on the “floor” where the battery sits. The problem is that the space to get it in is restricted.
If you unbolt the heater matrix and blower from the chassis (3 or 4 easy bolts from memor) you can slide that about 1 or 2 inches to the left on it’s pipes and just get enough clearance to get the next size up battery in, which as it is a more common size you can get a cranking capacity about twice that of the standard Exige size battery
Mark