If you can get a new battery, great. But if not, it may well still give years of good service.

in 2016, I bought a Sorento which had been the showroom model. The battery had been completely flat at least twice that I know of.

Five years later (and after much of the last year idle), it still starts fine.

Frustrating - but given supply chain disruption with Covid a lack of spares is not wholly surprising. At least you have a hire car!

3 year old Peugeot with stop start not working. Dealer said the problem was battery not fully charged so they put it on charge for a day whilst it was being serviced.

Following day stop/start works fine. Now intermittent again. Fed some stories.

First - low mileage during lockdown meant that battery could not reach full charge. This was rubbish as typical journeys are between 2 and 25 miles.

Second - the car has intelligent charging. Obviously not as intelligent as it should be as s/s not working!

Asked for battery change - told that battery performance is within tolerance.

Car starts OK and I don't like s/s anyway. Risk is having to pay for new battery in the next few years. Illustrates either over complex systems or rubbish dealer service.

Edited by Terry W on 14/06/2021 at 13:51

My Dad was of the same strategy, this would have been buying new cars in the 70s and 80s. No-one got a penny out of him without a fight.

My old dad always said “never buy a new design, let them iron the bugs out first.”

But the car is not "a new design". It was launched in India in August 2019 and the engine was used in the i20 in 2015.

>>They were unable to source an alternator anywhere in Europe.

What about trying the KIA dealers? - Hyundai & Kia are from the same parts bins with different body panels."""

Good point! I lot of people seem to think that every part on a particular car is only common to that car. In reality more and more parts are common to more and more cars as it cuts costs considerably. As too how helpful a main franchise dealer would be to source you a part outside the franchise is something else. There is a recent post about a Honda dealer wanting to charge his customer £1100 for an alternator part only. Another poster on here "Fiestaman" demonstrated that an alternator from a well known parts provider could supply one for some £250 exchange. One hell of a saving.

Maybe someone could devise an APP to cross reference all parts common to all cars--Now there's a thought!