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.
Purchased a Red Top 35 today and it fits! I did have to take the bottom bracket and flip it so that the side of the battery facing the headlight [+ -] stayed secure.
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.
I ended up buying a red top optima gel battery....expeeeensiiiive
But the battery's been fine. I got a Redtop after the factory battery died, then that Redtop eventually did wear out. So I got an Interstate, and it didn't stay the whole winter before getting shuffled into the Cabby or something that was summer duty/easy to start. I got another Redtop for the bug then and it's been fine.
I had an optima in my garage queen, wasn't even hooked up most of the time(unhooked it till I wanted to drive/work on it). it died 2 years and one month later, with MAYBE 1000 miles on it, no replacement/etc. now it's a doorstop in my garage.
Optima batteries have slowly gone to shit since they were bought by Johnson Controls.
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