Hi glassman,

If you fitted the Vargas battery yourself how did you not lose any settings?

I replaced the battery myself, there is note in one of the threads on the subject. The only thing that needed fixing was the clock moved forward. Procrastination, mankind's greatest labour saving device!

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Baker69 wrote:

Hi glassman,

If you fitted the Vargas battery yourself how did you not lose any settings?

Thanks guys for all of your replies and input to date.

The outcome of my phone call to the car sales place earlier this morning is that they put me on to the warranty company who have arranged for it to be checked over at a garage fairly near to where I live. As they do not know at this point whether it is a battery issue, charging issue or another cause they need the garage to carry out a diagnostic in order to establish the exact problem. If it is anything other than the battery they will authorise the repair under warranty with this garage, but if it is the battery they need to contact the car sales for them to authorise the fitting of a new one.

I’ve just got to hope it starts tomorrow morning, it only just about started today!

A lot of hassle, if I knew 100% that it was the battery I would just go and buy one I think, but at least something is being done.

jules wrote:

At least you dont an expensive AGM battery as the SD4 auto doesnt have stop/start. The battery is big and heavy though but apart from that its not difficult to fit and usually the only thing needing to be reset is the electric windows IIRC.

I had to buy a new battery for my 2014 auto last year. Just so you know the cost of these things; I got a Varta F19 battery from Tayna for £95

Baker69 wrote:

Hi glassman,

If you fitted the Vargas battery yourself how did you not lose any settings?

Baker69 wrote:

jules wrote:

At least you dont an expensive AGM battery as the SD4 auto doesnt have stop/start. The battery is big and heavy though but apart from that its not difficult to fit and usually the only thing needing to be reset is the electric windows IIRC.

I had to buy a new battery for my 2014 auto last year. Just so you know the cost of these things; I got a Varta F19 battery from Tayna for £95

Hi Jules,

Forgive my ignorance, but what needs to be re set on the electric windows?

Kwikfit changed my battery last November on my 2014 FL2. Everything went smoothly and did not have to reset anything.

Although my battery did not let me down, I had started to experience random 'phantom' faults on start up, and 'Low Battery' warnings. (as the weather got colder)

As they were all cleared by switching off/on, I took it that they were caused by low voltage during the 'ramp up' of the various control systems.

It might be my imagination, but I thought that the Battery Management System' took a few days to learn the capacity of the new battery, and adjust the 'Low Battery' warnings. FL2 XS SD4 Auto 2010 2012-2017 (21k - 91k miles) (MY2011)
FL2 Metropolis SD4 Auto 2014 2017- (16k - 76k+ miles) (MY2015)

Changed the battery in my 2013 sd4 auto last month - bought a Varta F19 from Tayna on forum recommendations. £97 delivered. Easy to fit, took about 10 mins. No settings lost, just had to recalibrate windows afterwards - as others have said, simple procedure, just follow the instructions in the handbook. Imo you'd be daft to pay anyone else to do it, honestly it's so easy - in the sd4 (no stop start) - anyway.

Old battery that came out was a JLR OEM battery stamped 2015, so was 5 years old (in a 2013 car though, so I wonder why it had to have a new battery fitted after two years?) . Anyway, the new Varta has higher capacity and better cold cranking amps plus a 5 year guarantee, so I was pleased.

Dartman the one wrote:

Generally most batteries are similar and have the same construction for their type, the differnce between a 1year warranty and a 4year warranty is zero except for the price, the difference in cost is just the insurance cost to the supplier or manufacturer should it fail during warranty, even then in is not always a 1 for 1 replcement, with a 4 year warranty and a failure after 2 years you may have to pay 50% of the cost or receive a battery with a 2 year warranty. Regarding Kwik Fit, if they are just changing the battery for £150 then not worth it, if they are resetting all the windows, sunroof and any other settings lost then possibly ok, but I wouldn't hold my breath they get it right. I used a small 12v battery attached by a couple of lengths of wire to the battery cables to retain the settings during the change over.
To check for a dead battery, turn on the headlights and check the battery holds 12.5v over 5 mins, if its dead it will drop to 12v or less.

I think I would deffo go with the Varta battery given the choice, but if the garage is replacing it I think it will be whatever make they use. They will probably just fit a generic 80ah heavy duty battery?

Well to be honest there will be nothing wrong with a generic heavy duty 80amp.

Well, the new battery is finally fitted, following a day of many phone calls to the garage, the car sales people and the warranty company! Getting authorisation to the garage for the work to be carried out was very tedious but it’s all done now, and we can finally start to enjoy our new Freelander!

I haven’t had a look at exactly what battery they’ve fitted, I’ll have to check it out later. I watched the guy fit it, he said that with Land Rovers it wasn’t really necessary to do anything to keep battery continuity during the swap, and apart from having to reset the clock everything seems to be ok? The guy reckoned it was one of the flattest batteries he’d come across and was surprised that I had managed to get it started at all!

Many thanks for all your comments and advice guys, it’s a great Forum and it’s nice that you are out there to help.

I’ve just had a look at the new battery, it’s a Lion AGM? Aren’t these supposed to be for cars with start stop?

jules wrote:

Baker69 wrote:

Worth considering Jules if I end up buying a new battery myself.

Are these better than the Kwik Fit batteries they sell for this model at £145 fitted?

Varta are good batteries.

I have no idea whose make of battery Kwik Fit use but I dont go anywhere them personally as they stitched up my son once and Ive never forgotten that.