New battery required...which make/type is better?

[peterzoom]

Cold starting of our 986 (2.5) is poor and after checking out the present unit it is at the end of its useful life.
Had a trawl through the Euro car parts site and 3 jump off the page.
The Bosch S5 ( 5 year 85 Ah/ 800cca ) £105.54
Bosch S4 ( 4 year 80ah/ 720cca ) £89.94
Exide ( 4 year 85Ah/ 800cca ) £89.94
Do any of you have experience of service life and performance of Bosch or Exide?
With the prospect of cold winters and infrequent use I am keen to go with a unit which has the greater cold cranking ability. But would rather base final choice on fellow owners actual experience, rather than just the advertising hype.
Thanks in advance.

[RobIpswichUK]

Personally I'd go for the Bosch Silver (S5). You can get them a lot cheaper online and delivered. I got mine for less that 76 quid including delivery about two years ago from Sutton Motor Factors

[Fire_2]

Porsche lightweight one

[mollytherocker]

Bosch silver from euro car parts.

They are doing 15% off too! Use code battery15.

Edited by mollytherocker on Saturday 1st December 19:45

[mrdemon]

I use the S4 , leave it ages and always starts, lasts twice as long as Porsche battery.

[peterzoom]

Thanks for all the replies and advice.
I tried putting the promo code into the Euro site and guess what........ Yup! Batteries not included, so annoying.

[mollytherocker]

peterzoom said:

Thanks for all the replies and advice.
I tried putting the promo code into the Euro site and guess what........ Yup! Batteries not included, so annoying.

It works!

[cslwannabe]

Mgrorg25 - just checked and 25% off. I bought the Bosch with 5yr warranty using that discount earlier in the year.

[996ttalot]

We only fit Bosch batteries

Ken

[turk1]

Bosch Silver S5 is the way to go, Much better battery than the one porsche sell.

[thegoose]

Fire_2 said:

Porsche lightweight one

The £2200+VAT may be an issue though?

[X-UFO]

cslwannabe said:

Mgrorg25 - just checked and 25% off. I bought the Bosch with 5yr warranty using that discount earlier in the year.

Thanks

My 3yr old battery was sluggish this morning thanks to the recent drop in temp.

Just ordered the Bosch S5 with free delivery and thanks to this I got £26.39 discount. Cheers

[burman]

Bosch or Varta both good,I have a very good battery specialist near me at Stevenage who I use for all my vehicles including tractors and his Vartas come with a 3 year warranty!!

[pete.g]

I got the Bosch S4 from ECP - very happy with quality and price.

We have always used Optima in our boats and I used the Optima Red Top when I ran a Defender, it had been using a battery a year until I changed; the Optima was still going strong after 5 years.

[peterzoom]

Thought I might update on progress with the battery.
After a bit of mucking about with the Euro website I finally got the discount code to work and bought a Bosch S5.

I fitted it on Monday this week. The difference is quite staggering. Not only does the Bosch fit correctly ( the outgoing unit was slightly too small to be clamped in and had been zip tied to the tray ) but the starter fairly spins up at a quite different rate, sounds much more business like! I do wonder, though, how a vehicle with a full (and I do mean full) main dealer history ended up with such a messy install, seems at odds with its pedigree.

From a numbers point of view, cost was £82.00 with a 5 year guarantee.
It was possible to get the same Bosch battery or a Varta at the same spec for slightly less online, but I was concerned about any problems years down the line and the hassle of sending a battery back to an internet supplier who might no longer be trading. So I figured that a locally based supplier was a safer long term bet.
Overall I am very happy and thanks to everyone for all the input and advice.

[mankey]

peterzoom said:

...... It was possible to get the same Bosch battery or a Varta at the same spec for slightly less online, but I was concerned about any problems years down the line and the hassle of sending a battery back to an internet supplier who might no longer be trading. So I figured that a locally based supplier was a safer long term bet.

For future reference, assuming you have one nearby, why not order form EuroCarParts (to get the discount) and collect it locally?

[Raitzi]

Exide and Varta would be my top choices.

[Kapenta]

I picked up a "Bosch Silver 096 S5" this morning at EuroCarParts using the MGorg25 discount code and it worked out £77 and pennies after the 25% Discount - thanks for the info!

[thegoose]

Kapenta said:

I picked up a "Bosch Silver 096 S5" this morning at EuroCarParts using the MGorg25 discount code and it worked out £77 and pennies after the 25% Discount - thanks for the info!

I decided that £52 for the 096 S3 was worth the saving instead, knowing that I'll be keeping it on a battery conditioner so I'd expect it to last a good number of years. Free delivery is handy too.