Your mechanic does not know where the battery posts are in the engine bay !!!
It’s not from the alternator posts even though it might work. There are two battery posts available in the engine bay which are there for jump starting and charging.
I have always jump started my T1 and do use a battery tender regularly from those posts. First time I’m hearing about charging from alternator. And of course you didn’t need to go charge it when you jump started as driving around will recharge it provided you drive a good amount of miles.


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Your mechanic does not know where the battery posts are in the engine bay !!!
It’s not from the alternator posts even though it might work. There are two battery posts available in the engine bay which are there for jump starting and charging.
I have always jump started my T1 and do use a battery tender regularly from those posts. First time I’m hearing about charging from alternator. And of course you didn’t need to go charge it when you jump started as driving around will recharge it provided you drive a good amount of miles.


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Thank you Trespect. After a quick googling I think I must have used the wrong terminology and caused confusion. It must be the battery post that the mechanic tried charging from.

 

Ok then that strange he couldn’t charge from those terminals !!!
Maybe he just wanted to get some extra work hours or he might be an honest guy. I can not judge. You should get a battery tender like the noco 5 or the cteck and try for yourself but you should that issue and find out why the those posts are not connected to the battery. The negative terminal is connected to the chasis. You can check continuity from the positive post in the engine bay to the positive terminal.



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Ok then that strange he couldn’t charge from those terminals !!!
Maybe he just wanted to get some extra work hours or he might be an honest guy. I can not judge. You should get a battery tender like the noco 5 or the cteck and try for yourself but you should that issue and find out why the those posts are not connected to the battery. The negative terminal is connected to the chasis. You can check continuity from the positive post in the engine bay to the positive terminal.



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Will definitely take a look at the battery tender you mentioned. Thank you. Seems a must have considering how difficult to get to that huge battery and how expensive to replace it…
Btw how do you know if the battery needs a bit charging? I read some posts here saying the battery load tester isn’t really accurate. Or the missfire or delay would be a good indicator?

 

The fact that he removed the seat rather than just tipped it backwards tells me he's not familiar with Touaregs. I can swap a battery in 10 minutes so charging an hour just to access it is folly.

 

2011 T3 battery access can be different to T1 and T2.

On some Gen 2 cars you can still tip the seat back but on others you can't.

 

Gotcha...mine is an 09 so tips

 

An alternator is designed to maintain a fully charged battery not charge one from flat.

If flat then it needs to go on a external charger for 12 or more hours.

You didn't waste your money having the mechanic charge it for you.

Why would you need to visit a mechanic to put a battery on charge though?

Buy yourself a Ctek charger or similar and learn how to connect two croc clips, one hour of labour would cost about the same to.

 

An alternator is designed to maintain a fully charged battery not charge one from flat.

If flat then it needs to go on a external charger for 12 or more hours.

You didn't waste your money having the mechanic charge it for you.

Why would you need to visit a mechanic to put a battery on charge though?

Buy yourself a Ctek charger or similar and learn how to connect two croc clips, one hour of labour would cost about the same to.

Thanks for the feedback. Will look into that charger as you recommended. The battery is about 4 years old figured the charger might come handy soon although I hope it would last a few more years.
I didn’t give myself a bit of time to investigate a bit that morning as I was in a hurry to get it fixed so that I can pick up my wife from hospital. But in the end wife had to pay for Uber and I had to pay for mechanic. A small addition to the life experience.

 

Just an additional suggestion. Buy and carry a Lithium jump starter . They are a must to keep in the car for a battery that goes bad for whatever reason. They are the size of a couple of packs of cigarettes and cost less than $100 bucks.
I keep one in the boat for the same reason.

 

IIRC there are instructions in the manual regarding this (jump starting at least). I was a bit surprised because it said to connect the negative cable to the frame, not to the negative terminal. Not sure why or if it makes a difference, but I connected my jump starter as instructed, and it did start my Touareg with a dead battery.

I recommend these too. But there are different versions. Be sure you get one whose price fits your means and functionality suits your needs

• Slow-charge packs. These are the cheapest and smallest. They're basically a glorified extra battery pack for your phone. When plugged into a 12V outlet, they will slowly trickle charge a low battery to give it just enough charge to crank the engine (usually only enough for one start). You plug it in, wait about 20 min, then crank the engine. The car's battery does the cranking, not the device. So it won't help if the car battery is disconnected or has malfunctioned, or there's a short somewhere. They also may not be able to charge a completely flat battery enough to crank the engine.
• An actual jump starter. These are more expensive and bigger. Lithium batteries normally cannot provide enough current to crank your car engine. So these either have a capacitor, or a whole bunch of cells arranged in parallel to be able to provide sufficient current. These can start your car even if you remove the regular battery. However, these "dumb" jump starters are fairly rare because the large current involved can make them dangerous (e.g. can melt the cables if you hook it up backwards). Which leads us to...
• Basically the same as the previous, but with a failsafe built into them which prevents them from discharging if you've connected it incorrectly. These are the most common that I see. It determines if the connection is correct by measuring the voltage of the weak battery. If it detects no residual voltage, it will conclude you've connected it incorrectly and won't work. So it won't help you in the case of a completely flat or missing battery - since it can't detect the weak voltage from the battery, it will refuse to work.
• The last type is basically the same as the previous, but with an override mode or switch which lets you disable the failsafe. If the battery is completely flat or missing, and you're absolutely sure you've connected the jump starter correctly, you can disable the failsafe and crank the engine. They're the most expensive (though not much more expensive than the previous). And you really need to be sure of what you're doing lest you melt the cables or start a fire.

Most of these also have additional features like USB sockets so they can function as an extra battery pack, 12V socket, flashlight, etc.. Very handy when camping or you need to test-power 12V electronics.

There are also the so-called battery power generators (which don't really generate power - they still need to be charged, they're just intended to replace a gas generator). These usually do not have a capacitor or the cells arranged in a way to provide sufficient current to crank your car engine. Although if their output voltage is high enough (usually 13.5V), you could plug it into a 12V socket and use it like the first type I've listed above. They usually come with circuitry so you can plug a standalone solar panel into them to charge them, and an inverter so you can plug in AC electronics.

 

I have one too and had to use it once in the treg. Mine is a 3.2 2004 model. Amp draw during engine start shows 35 amps !! But be careful when you go buy one as amp draw differs based on engine.


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The Amp drawing is >100 for gas engines and double on diesels depending on engine type (my V10 took 400 Amps from the 2 batteries)
Your mechanic is an idiot- change to another one.. there is a direct line from the jumpstart post to the battery without any fuse- so no difference in charging from jumpstart or battery pole..
you will have to make a base loading of the battery (if it is fully drained ) to 11-12 Volt before using a lithium jump starter.. if the (automatic) ctek doesn`t start the loading cycle you can simply connect a 2nd battery to the jumpstart pole while loading until the drained one has filled enough.. good luck..

 

Next time try this:
Connect the charger to a charged battery and this battery to the posts. Some chargers when read too low voltage deny to charge.
Please, feedback if it worked.

 

2005 v10, same problem, does not charge from engine compartment terminals, therefore I suspect it's not a direct line and the previous guys mechanics is not an idiot? Anyone ideas