New battery time

[tuttle]

Hi all a combination of old battery & the cold weather has done for my old westco. MX5 parts don't have any in stock at the mo. Does any body use any different battery makes that fit & work well in a Mk1?
Thanks in advance.

[Pete Franklin]

You can get them from other places than Mx5 Parts- try Tanya Batteries

[GC8]

You can buy a Bosch 063 for about £34, complete with vent tube attachment.

[MX-5 Lazza]

Have you tried giving it a full recharge? A good purpose-made charger like Optimate 4 can recover a seemingly dead Wescto.

[tuttle]

Thanks for the replies folks. I have recharged it & when its not too cold it seems to hold ok but where the temp has been very low recently the battery wont even hold a charge overnight.
I have resorted to keeping a booster pack jumper thingy in the boot for the last week or so.

[MX-5 Lazza]

When you say you've tried recharging it... What sort of charger and for how long?
The Westco is a glass mat/gel type battery and needs to be trickle charged for a long time (like a couple of days if it's very low on charge) to get them fully charged up. A standard charger for a lead/acid battery probably won't be able to charge it properly unless it has a special mode for sealed/gel batteries.

[tuttle]

Thanks Lazza but alas, yes, it was on a trickle charge over the weekend.

[MX-5 Lazza]

tuttle said:

Thanks Lazza but alas, yes, it was on a trickle charge over the weekend.

Sounds pretty dead then.

Mind you, I had a "dead" Westco that wouldn't charge at all using my Halfords charger even though it has a special Sealed battery mode. Luckily I didn't have an opportunity to take it to the dump but it did sit outside in the rain/ frost/snow/sun etc. all last year. I plugged my Optimate 4 into it a few months ago, left it on charge for about a week (for the first couple of days it was in recovery mode) and it seems to have completely recovered it. I haven't tried it out yet but it doesn't seem to lose charge.

[Eighteeteewhy]

Mines been slow starting all week ending up in it not starting yesterday.
Had the battery tested and it's kaput. Are those Bosch battery's any good?

[MX-5 Lazza]

Eighteeteewhy said:

Mines been slow starting all week ending up in it not starting yesterday.
Had the battery tested and it's kaput. Are those Bosch battery's any good?

Is it a Westco or Panasonic? If so most places that test them will test them as normal lead/acid batteries which won't give them correct results.

[Eighteeteewhy]

Yes, it is a Westco laz. I'm a bit surprised because on here they seem to be highly rated. Is there any way I can test it?

[furtive]

Mine wouldn't start either on Monday so I ordered a Westco replacement from MX5Parts and all is well again. My car had the original Panny battery which expired.

When fitting the Westco I worried for a minute as I couldn't get the vent pipes to fit. But I turned them around and they fitted perfectly