Thanks for taking the time to read and post suggestions.
I've began having a nice relaxing Christmas and New year's so have deliberately avoided the car.
I did check the specs of the old laptop I have but it only has 4gb of ram. Not sure if this will be enough.
Hope that you all have had a wonderful Christmas and New year too
The battery is 13 months old, but it's not a silver calcium (?) one. The cover for the battery is broken so it may be that it wasn't getting sufficient cooling...
I don't have an oscilloscope so I can't properly check the charging.
So now the Vida dice is becoming more cost effective. I'll get one before I change anything else on the car.