Battery Varta or ODYSSEY

I only use Varta batteries and i hade my 4 years and i dont even use it in winters(6Months) and when i charge it it keeps me up the rest of the summer around 6 months there too...=)

Hi Mike, Varta G14 is the retail equivalent, assuming you don't order the OEM one from VW Parts.

Thank you for this excellent write up. Made switching out the 11 year old Varta a breeze. Locally cold temps caused negative strap reconnect challege due to stiffness. That and the mass of the big AGM we're the main challenges.

My oem battery lasted from '08 to '13. The last few weeks the car would hesistate to start. The starter would click click, dashboard lights would flicker, and the ECU and CANBUS would reset. I'd lose the auto windows and see my trip odo reset, but the battery read 12.5V and alternator read just fine too. I waited until the day I had to jump-start the car then drove to VW and bought a new OEM battery; I believe it's a Varta. After I installed new battery the starting issues went away, but I got stuck where the car would go "clickiddy clickiddy clickiddy click" and dash lights flickered like mad; new battery too! I took my multi-tool and started beating on the connections, leads, and grounds. I found the ground wire to be a bit corroded. After cleaning the terminals with 120 grit and a whopping dose of dielectric, car starts like brand new. The starter is pretty tough.

So I have the Odyssey 1200MJT in now and securely mounted with their "HDS mounting strap for 1200/1700 series batteries" from West Coast Batteries. It's mounted in the stock location in my 1994 Corrado VR6.

Varta makes damn good batteries. One in my Rabbit lasted almost 5 years.

My GTI's original Varta battery lasted 7 yrs with normal driving/ number of starts.

I use a 790cca Odyssey fmj in the summer and just bought a 590cca battery from Autozone and have a 4 year warranty and it seems to perform better than the oem battery that was killed by my bag setup.

I use a 790cca Odyssey fmj in the summer and just bought a 590cca battery from Autozone and have a 4 year warranty and it seems to perform better than the oem battery that was killed by my bag setup.

I used Odysseys PC-680 on other cars, particularly on Evos. They weight about 15lbs and they free up spaces dramatically but the reliability is awful. I went through 3 of them once. They will start the car with a little bit of difficulty but don't try to start the car with the A/C , the radio etc because they can't.