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.
Yes it does sit inside of the frame rail. When my A2 was a daily driver year ago, I ran the same battery. The battery fit perfect and did not hit the power steering bottle at all.
I decided to stop by the dealer today and check if they had any. Sure enough they did but wanted $15x.xx for it. I mentioned that I had found a lower price online but didn't want to wait for shipping to my surprise they offered to sell it to me for $126. I was really happy with that so I bought it and installed it this afternoon. So for anyone that may dig up this thread searching in the future, 000 915 105 DE fits and works great in a mk2 :thumbup:
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.
A battery from VW was actually cheaper and had a better warranty than what Advance was trying to sell me. So I just bought the battery from the dealer, installed myself, then returned the old one for the core refund.
I installed a new battery but now the car won't start or turn over.
VW Factory battery from the dealers are over rated, they lasted about 3 years... Disappointed... and over rated.
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