[BiturboS4] RE: Warranty on battery

[Edwards, Dave]

The battery on my wife's car (a Ford Puma) died after about a year. Although
she did do a lot of short distance daily driving, I thought it was a bit
early to expire. However the response from the Ford dealer was "it's not
covered under warranty".

However I had read the warranty agreement, and saw that I had the right to
request a failed item to be send off to Ford HQ for analysis to see if the
failure was either wear and tear or it was premature.

When I made this request to the dealer, the immediate response was to
replace the battery under 'goodwill', where I would have to pay for about
20% of the cost. I decided to take them up on it since the alternative was
hassle vs the relatively little I would have to pay.

I'm not sure if this tale helps...

Dave

--__--__--

Message: 1
From: Ti Kan <ti at amb.org>
Subject: Re: [BiturboS4] Is The Battery Considered A Warranty Item?
To: jysap at cs.com
Date: Tue, 15 Oct 2002 10:30:48 -0700 (PDT)
Cc: biturbos4 at audifans.com

jysap at cs.com writes:
> For the past year my S4 has had the battery die unexpectedly. Audi
> road ser= vice gives me a jump and the car seems to be fine for a few
> months. Then I = let it sit for a few days and 'click, click, click' -
> no juice. My Audi dea= ler claims that my alternator is charging just
> fine (what else would they s= ay ;) ).  Has anyone else had this
> problem? I am already expecting the std =
> response: "the battery is not a warranty item." When I replace the battery
=
> on my dime, It will probably a SEARS Die-Hard or equivalent battery. It's
b=
> een my experience that OEM is not always the best choice for a car because
=
> auto makers are always looking at ways to cut costs and it starts with OEM
=
> stuff and cascades.

The battery should be covered by warranty.  The factory battery (hey it kind
of rhymes) is actually quite good.  Sears Diehard is junk nowadays.  It used
to be good when it was made by Johnson Controls, by they have switched to
Exide as the supplier.

Do you drive your S4 daily?  What seems to kill batteries is if you let it
discharge completely and charge it up again repeatedly.  Check the
electrolyte level in each battery cell, add distilled water if necessary.

-Ti