Low Battery Message
 

Over the past few weeks I’ve had the message low battery and also the stop start not working. I disconnected the positive side of the battery and left it overnight this worked for a couple of days and the stop start worked again now it’s reverted back to not working. Do I need a new battery? Have seen Halfords adverts for new battery fitting for £180 I think this is a bit steep

Investing in a decent smart charger can often be more cost effective than battery replacement.

It depends on your circumstances. Where your car is parked, access to a power point etc.

It's an issue that has affected many of us, especially during the lockdown. As suggested above, I've been using a charger every now and again plus I did also reset the battery monitoring system a while ago which seemed to make a big difference. I decided that the system expects to see the performance of a new battery and - after 3 or 4 years - the performance of an older battery will cause the odd 'low charge' message and periods of stop/start unavailability, nevertheless the car always cranks OK and starts fine even in the depths of winter. No doubt a new battery would completely 'fix' the issue, but it's a bit of an unwanted overhead to have to buy a new one every 3 years!

There's lots of forum threads on this 'problem' with a fair bit of useful advice in this other currently active thread...
https://www.volvoforums.org.uk/showthread.php?t=308958

I bought an XC60 end of last year and got the Low Battery on a number of occasions. It is quite a nuisance getting into the battery to charge it up but I discovered on here about CTEK whereby I got a different lead which allowed me to plug my CTEK into my towbar 13 pin plug. Great if you have a towbar but failing that splash out and buy a CTEK and plug it in when the car is parked up. Only about the £60 mark and great value.

I spoke to a technical rep of a battery manufacturer a little while back about regularly topping up an AGM stop/start battery. Was told that constant charging or regular maintenance charging will reduce battery life. Never heard of this before and he may have been trying to promote the sale of a new battery so can anyone debunk or confirm this?

It takes me about 10 seconds to remove the cover over my main battery positive terminal... were you removing further panels to also access the negative terminal, rather than clip the negative battery lead onto the engine/bodywork?

So long as the correct (smart) charger is used then surely this must be at least as good for the battery as being charged by the vehicle alternator? Especially on a modern car where the alternator output is further managed to only provide output during periods of deacceleration in the interests of fuel economy (which may not be the kindest charging method for the battery) and - at least on our Volvo cars - limits the normal charge level to only 80 - 85% (which again is not necessarily in the best interests of the battery).

you need to charge the battery for at LEAST 48 hours to recover it .
Volvo recommend charging it every 2 weeks in current conditions where cars are not being used as much as usual .

ALWAYS get a quote from volvo if you need a battery they are competitively priced .

The battery should have a manufacturing date so I would check that.
Modern batteries should last between 5 and 10 years so if the battery is around this age then I would change it.
Online batteries are definitely cheapest, but a good independent battery supplier should be competitively priced and should be able to test your existing battery, although testing can be misleading and not always show up a problem so as mentioned if the battery is over 5 years I would just buy a new one...you should be looking at around £100 for a good make.
A local supplier should be able to fit free of charge or for minimal cost.

Totally agree with Clan. Volvo main dealer best price and fitted for nominal cost

not sure if volvos are particularly sensitive to battery condition , but on my v70 I used to get the message if I left the stereo on after I turned the engine off after just a couple of mins.
Same on my xc60 I have just bought