AGM battery renewal

[fox50]

Advice please from Mini experts,the AGM battery on my 2014 R58 N16 Cooper coupe is getting tired,has anyone renewed one with a non AGM battery? Have heard that the smart charge cable on the negative terminal needs to be disconnected? Any information & experiences welcome.

[stevemcs]

Just put the proper battery on, do it before it fails and takes the footwell module with it

[Challo]

fox50 said:

Advice please from Mini experts,the AGM battery on my 2014 R58 N16 Cooper coupe is getting tired,has anyone renewed one with a non AGM battery? Have heard that the smart charge cable on the negative terminal needs to be disconnected? Any information & experiences welcome.

Does you car have stop start?

[rigga]

Challo said:

fox50 said:

Advice please from Mini experts,the AGM battery on my 2014 R58 N16 Cooper coupe is getting tired,has anyone renewed one with a non AGM battery? Have heard that the smart charge cable on the negative terminal needs to be disconnected? Any information & experiences welcome.

Does you car have stop start?

Doesn't have to have stop start to have intelligent battery monitoring.
New battery needs coding to the car, so it knows it has a new battery, and charges it accordingly.

[csd19]

OP, where in the country are you? You might get lucky and find a friendly fellow PHer nearby with the Carly OBD dongle (or similar, I can't remember the other one) to code the battery to the car.

[fox50]

Thankyou all for the input,car does have stop/start which i always turn off,am ok for getting the battery coded to the car,so if I read this right its ok to substitute AGM for non AGM as long as its coded to the car? Regards.

[stevemcs]

No, don't fit a standard battery, only fit an AGM battery

[CoolHands]

You can, cos I did. I made sure the stop start was always off by coding. However I’ve since returned to an AGM battery as a long time later (2 years) I had a few probs with a spate of steering column error & other codes and I couldn’t be sure if the battery was causing a issue. I changed the battery back to AGM to rule it out.

So I think it can work ok for couple of years but gradually suffers due to lower state of charge. So if you’re keeping the car I would buy AGM.

[stevemcs]

We had a customer fit a non agm battery to an Evoque and it really didn’t like it. Lots of electrical issues, they are sensitive and can fry the footwell module.

We would fit genuine, Varna or Bosch under no circumstances fit lion

[shakindog]

CoolHands said:

You can, cos I did. I made sure the stop start was always off by coding. However I’ve since returned to an AGM battery as a long time later (2 years) I had a few probs with a spate of steering column error & other codes and I couldn’t be sure if the battery was causing a issue. I changed the battery back to AGM to rule it out.

So I think it can work ok for couple of years but gradually suffers due to lower state of charge. So if you’re keeping the car I would buy AGM.

Just because you can doesn’t mean you should.
I have seen a standard lead acid battery fitted to a fiat 500 that was cooked in 25 miles where it should have had a agm/efb fitted.
Cooked as in very hot
Always fit agm or efb if that’s what comes on the car as they are deep discharging and are monitored by the car systems.
If cars with agm/efb fitted would happily have standard lead acid fitted when coding the battery their would be the option to pick lead acid and code accordingly.

Hats off for giving it a try and not causing any major issues as modern car electrical systems can be a pita the at best of times

[CoolHands]

Hmmm got me worried now! But the car seems ok. AGM went back on in June 2021, so far no lasting repercussions that I know of! AGM are bloody expensive though.

[fox50]

Lovely! Thanks to all,new AGM it is then,coded when fitted,PHers never fail to come up with the answers,regards.