New VARTA battery. How 'Fresh' is it? How to find the production date?

[HugoFar]

Our MY08 Cali original VARTA battery has finally given up the ghost and I've just bought a new VARTA G3 battery from a local NZ stockist. I asked him how old the new battery was and he assured me it would be quite 'fresh'. After buying it I hunted for a production date. The old ones had a date stamped into the -ve terminal. In our case it was 20 above 07. Which translates to Week 20, of year 2007. The new one had no such date stamps. I finally found two date 'clocks' stamped on the under side of the battery. One clock pointed to a 12. ( range of 1-12, months?) the other to a 16. (range was 16-21) I take this to be month 12/December of year 2016. If this is the production date then this makes my new battery 13 months old. And Sulfation would have started. Not good. How ever, there is also a small tamper proof square sticker on top right hand corner of the battery which has 'A8', then in tiny letters below 'Warranty void if label tampered'. Could this sticker be claiming that my new battery was made in January 2018? Letters and number having been previously used for this purpose. Hardly possible as I ordered it Jan 11th,and it arrived Jan 12, 2018. Can any one confirm how to check the real production date of a new VARTA battery? Is there any chance the 'clock' stamps indicate the date when the battery casing was made, and then the A8 label indicate when the battery was filled, in NZ just before being shipped out? Hopefully someone can enlighten me before I call the shop back on Monday. Thanks. Hugo

 

[MattBW]

According to the VARTA website the batteries are colour coded for age. Cant find what the codes are though.

 

[MattBW]

According to VARTA, "the battery should be installed in the customer’s vehicle no later than a total of 15 months from the date of manufacture. The terminal voltage should be greater than 12.2 V.

Batteries should be sold according to the first-in, first-out principle. Therefore, they are helpfully colour coded according to the date of manufacture (please see colour coding table).

Except the colour coding only goes upto 2011, useless.
http://www.rectifier.co.za/Batteries/VARTA/pdf/car/Folder_car.pdf

 

[MattBW]

More documents that refer to a non existant table http://d26maze4pb6to3.cloudfront.ne...14/1881/2808/Battery_maintenance_and_care.pdf

 

[MattBW]

Aha result, apparently email VARTA customer services with the code and they'll tell you the manufacturing date

 

[HugoFar]

Thanks Matt. I'll try the email route. I'm guessing it will be Dec 2016 but I'll post when I get a reply from Varta. I have had a confirmation that the 2 year warranty starts from the 'A8', being Jan 2018. Btw, battery now fitted and all working well. Just like new...