I have recently seen a number of people trying to start their cars and being surprised to see that the recent cold weather has once and for all killed the battery of their car. They could have saved the trouble had they spared 5 minutes to check the condition of their battery with a diagnostic tool such as VCDS.
Many people will be aware that they can check their current battery condition in Address 19: CAN Gateway, for example via the following values:
IDE01834 Battery voltage
IDE01835 Battery current filtered
IDE01836 Battery current
IDE01839 Battery charge level
IDE01841 Battery internal resistance
IDE01842 Usable battery charge
IDE01843 Battery voltage at rest
However, fewer people may be aware that there is a very useful tool somewhat hidden in VCDS which I call Battery History and Analysis and which can be used to analyze what condition the battery is in now and how it got to that stage through various battery-related events in the past. The entire history of the battery is stored in Address 19: CAN Gateway and can tell us how many batteries the vehicle has had, when the current one was installed, how many times it was charged and – most importantly – how “old” it is in relation to its performance.
Start VCDS and go to Applications
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and then to History Data
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Select “19” and click Analyze.
You will then see a dialog in which you can select topics such as Battery Change History, Energy-Critical Vehicle States, No Load Voltage Under Ranging, Shut-Off Stage History, Energy Ballances, Battery Manipulation or Battery Aging as well as dates in the past which were relevant for a battery-related reason.
![Image]()
There are some really useful values in there for car enthusiasts to play with (such as Age in Relation to Charging or Age in Relation to Performance, which should ideally both be 100%), but 2 of them are of particular relevance if you want to find out what condition your battery is in and only have 5 minutes: Battery Resistance in mOhm in 5: Energy-Critical Vehicle States and Battery Lifetime in hours in 9: Battery Aging. If you have just installed a new battery and returned the driver’s seat where it belongs, the Battery Resistance box should display 2,6 mOhm and the Battery Lifetime one 0. If your battery is just about to die a death, the Battery Resistance box will display approximately 4 mOhm and the Battery Lifetime one will be around 13 776 h.
As always, one man’s meat, another man’s poison, but if you want to avoid standing in front of your car and not being able to start it or even not being able to get inside, I recommend replacing the battery when its internal resistance is higher than 3,6 mOhm or its lifetime higher than 10 000 h.
Many happy miles with a peace of mind resulting from a well checked battery!
P. S.: Sorry for the low quality of the photographs, which were taken for a completely different purpose.
P. S. S.: When I updated my VCDS to 23.3 some time ago, the Analyze button did not work. If some of you use a post-23.3 version and the Analyze feature already works, please let me know.
Many people will be aware that they can check their current battery condition in Address 19: CAN Gateway, for example via the following values:
IDE01834 Battery voltage
IDE01835 Battery current filtered
IDE01836 Battery current
IDE01839 Battery charge level
IDE01841 Battery internal resistance
IDE01842 Usable battery charge
IDE01843 Battery voltage at rest
However, fewer people may be aware that there is a very useful tool somewhat hidden in VCDS which I call Battery History and Analysis and which can be used to analyze what condition the battery is in now and how it got to that stage through various battery-related events in the past. The entire history of the battery is stored in Address 19: CAN Gateway and can tell us how many batteries the vehicle has had, when the current one was installed, how many times it was charged and – most importantly – how “old” it is in relation to its performance.
Start VCDS and go to Applications
and then to History Data
Select “19” and click Analyze.
You will then see a dialog in which you can select topics such as Battery Change History, Energy-Critical Vehicle States, No Load Voltage Under Ranging, Shut-Off Stage History, Energy Ballances, Battery Manipulation or Battery Aging as well as dates in the past which were relevant for a battery-related reason.
There are some really useful values in there for car enthusiasts to play with (such as Age in Relation to Charging or Age in Relation to Performance, which should ideally both be 100%), but 2 of them are of particular relevance if you want to find out what condition your battery is in and only have 5 minutes: Battery Resistance in mOhm in 5: Energy-Critical Vehicle States and Battery Lifetime in hours in 9: Battery Aging. If you have just installed a new battery and returned the driver’s seat where it belongs, the Battery Resistance box should display 2,6 mOhm and the Battery Lifetime one 0. If your battery is just about to die a death, the Battery Resistance box will display approximately 4 mOhm and the Battery Lifetime one will be around 13 776 h.
As always, one man’s meat, another man’s poison, but if you want to avoid standing in front of your car and not being able to start it or even not being able to get inside, I recommend replacing the battery when its internal resistance is higher than 3,6 mOhm or its lifetime higher than 10 000 h.
Many happy miles with a peace of mind resulting from a well checked battery!
P. S.: Sorry for the low quality of the photographs, which were taken for a completely different purpose.
P. S. S.: When I updated my VCDS to 23.3 some time ago, the Analyze button did not work. If some of you use a post-23.3 version and the Analyze feature already works, please let me know.
