New car battery - 480amp v 640amp

BaileyB

Hi,

Looking for some advice.

I just bought a car battery from my local motor factors and gave them my reg and said 'here you are' paid and left.

Just went to fit it now and the old one is larger, it was 3/4 under the windscreen and also covered so could not see the label until i took it out.

It's also 640amp compared to the 480amp of the new one.

I connected it just to see if the issue was my battery (breakdown said it was) and the car started fine.

I phone the local motor factors and they said it's the only size they do for my model car. But can go back for refund if needed.

My car is a 1.6 Citroen C4 (2007)

Now my question is would this battery be ok? I did a search on other sites and all come back as the smaller battery.

Any advice would be great

Strider590

It probably won't matter, it might not last as long as the larger battery.

Chances are the battery has been replaced before and they fitted a higher capacity.

What does this site say it should be?

https://www.tayna.co.uk/Citroen-C4-Car-Battery

The problem with motor factors, is they have no experts, just a computer system that likes to say no.

BaileyB

Thanks says 027 version

DoaM

Which is 570A according to that site, just over half way between your old and new batteries.

AdrianC

027 is a size/layout code. This wide, this deep, this high, terminals here and here this way round, this style of terminal.

The physically bigger the battery, the more likely it is to be higher output. There's two capacity/output figures for a battery - Ah and CCA.

Amp-hours/Ah is the "size of the tank" - how much electricity can be stored in the battery. If you have a 60Ah battery, you can have a 1A draw (12w) for 60 hours before it's totally and utterly theoretically flat.

Cold-cranking Amps/CCA is the amount of oomph the battery can possibly deliver in one go, absolute maximum. But the current actually delivered depends on what's asking for it. Your starter motor is the highest demand component on the car - and is probably pulling about 150A at most. Anything much above that is academic.

If it physically fits, and the car starts happily, it's the right battery...

stator

If it meets the CCA requirements then it will be ok.
If the mAh is less than recommended then you might find it goes flat after lots of small journeys (although all cars do that)

Strider590

AdrianC wrote: »

027 is a size/layout code. This wide, this deep, this high, terminals here and here this way round, this style of terminal.

The physically bigger the battery, the more likely it is to be higher output. There's two capacity/output figures for a battery - Ah and CCA.

Amp-hours/Ah is the "size of the tank" - how much electricity can be stored in the battery. If you have a 60Ah battery, you can have a 1A draw (12w) for 60 hours before it's totally and utterly theoretically flat.

Cold-cranking Amps/CCA is the amount of oomph the battery can possibly deliver in one go, absolute maximum. But the current actually delivered depends on what's asking for it. Your starter motor is the highest demand component on the car - and is probably pulling about 150A at most. Anything much above that is academic.

If it physically fits, and the car starts happily, it's the right battery...

Ah and CCA are the things that deteriorate with age, once the CCA is too low for the starter, the battery is no good, hence why they usually fail during winter. The CCA is basically dependant on the batteries internal resistance during cold weather.

I'm no expert on spec'ing batteries to car starters, but I would imagine they specify a CCA of something like 3x the starter current.

And yes, if it works and it fits, it's probably ok, might fail earlier than expected, but how many people keep a car that long?

My Vectra had the wrong battery fitted, an 065, should have been 075 (which is taller), but it fit, it worked and that's all I cared about.

stator

My car's original battery was overspeced. It lasted 12 years.

gilbert_and_sullivan

stator wrote: »

My car's original battery was overspeced. It lasted 12 years.

Agreed, highest capacity battery you can get in the holder every time, last years and there's always enough poke whatever happens, plus the starter spins over quicker, engine starts quicker, less time cranking, win win.

Often the cost for the better one, often with a 4 or 5 year guarantee isn't much more than the just about copes jobbie.

Strider590

gilbert_and_sullivan wrote: »

Agreed, highest capacity battery you can get in the holder every time, last years and there's always enough poke whatever happens, plus the starter spins over quicker, engine starts quicker, less time cranking, win win.

Often the cost for the better one, often with a 4 or 5 year guarantee isn't much more than the just about copes jobbie.

It shouldn't do, the starter draws the same current regardless of the battery size. But if would certainly seem that way after replacing a bad battery.