Hi, Leaving for France this Friday and think I need a new battery as my current one needs charging each night. Pretty much restricted to Halfords at this short notice, but is there anything in particular I need to look for? Battery I have at the moment is Varta 61ah, erm and its blue..... :-[
Get a hydrometer to test the battery they are cheap enough. Charge it , disconnect from van over night and see if charge still held? Might be a short on the van rather than battery. If your going on holls best thing is get an autoelectrician to test the van for you- not worth the fun really is it? Oh if you must get a battery avoid halfrauds but try to find Yusama battery supplier. Good luck
The other thing... Do you have a dynamo or an alternator set up? Standard alternator is 55ahr so if it's old and not putting out near it's max, that and short trips equals a regularly flat battery. I've a 65ahr vehicle battery and two 75ahr leisure batteries: the alty seldom manages to charge all three so I put the chargers on before going anywhere. Search on line for battery suppliers; yuasha, bosch, Lucas all pretty good...