When I asked for a quote on the traction battery for my car, the service advisor misheard me and gave me a quote for the 12V battery - a bit over $1k installed
. Part alone is over $600. The battery is still fine, but I found a tutorial online and yes my car requires a very specific bit of coding in the ECU. CTC has compatible batteries for less than $300. We are so far from my college days when I had two cars and one battery ![Tongue :P](https://www.autos.ca/forum/Smileys/CarTalk/tongue.gif)
WUT? Over $1k for a regular battery? Holy
that's robbery. FWIW, the OBDEleven can take care of the programming for you if you ever need it.
The tutorial I saw on YouTube looked simple enough, and the savings would probably cover software and connectors. The battery is located in a dry and clean inside cubby in the trunk floor. But add this to the upcoming cost of the DCT snake oil and secret swap ritual, and this thing is scaring me back to Asian cars.
Not sure how it works on Audi/VW (the battery on the GTI is still young), but I know how it works on BMW where you also have to code and/or register the new battery.
You only need to
code the new battery if you change the specs from original/existing battery (e.g. buy aftermarket battery which will have slightly different specs). Coding means you need to update whatever parameters have changed. For this you need a more advanced OBDII device/software that can write the ECU. Otherwise you need to go to the dealer or shop with this capabilities.
If you replace the original with identical OEM P/N, you only need to
register the new battery (basically tell the ECU you have a new battery). This can be done with a less fancy OBDII device like BlueDriver which is is what I use.
I noticed some YT videos don't make the distinction between coding and registration and each use case, but again, this is applicable to BMW.