I was over at my girlfriends last night, and we had the coldest day of the year... it was about -10 out this morning WITHOUT the wind chill factored in. My winter beater, a 1984 VW GTI was frozen solid. It almost started a few times but then all I was doing was draining the battery. So there it sits dead at her apartment. Heaven forbid I take the L out of storage! I looked at the battery on the VW, it is rated only for 400 amps. What if anything would I be hurting by purchasing a more powerful battery tonight and tossing that in there? Something like 550-600 amps of juice. Will I fry the starter or cause other ill effects?
Thanks for any help, I really don't want to wake up my L, she's sleeping so well in the garage right now!

 

I don't know if it's good or bad but I always put the largest battery I could fit.
-This weather ..............sucks

 

More cranking amps will help. Put in the biggest (cranking amps) you can find that will fit.

 

Cant you just get some jumpers and start it up with the assistance of your girls car?

 

Thats what I would do and if that works you know its time for a new battery. And like the others said get the bigger cranking amp battery. Three Wisconsin guys in one post about Wisconsin weather.... must be a record

 

you know the weather is weird, i dont know about you guys in the other states, but in michigan last year was the warmest winter in history, we snow like once, and people were playing golf in february, and this year is one of the coldest winters in history! so thats worse, because we were used to the warmth last year, now it's super cold.......

 

Good ol' global warming and El Nino. So much for the mild, wet winter that was predicted for Michigan this winter.

The cold knocks out the heater in my winter beater. It came on about 100 yards from work today.

 

Yes I remember that. We had like 3ft of snow on the ground in early December and like you said in late Jan early Feb guys were out golfing... talk about a wierd year.

 

Yeah, I wanted to jump start it this morning, but we were both running a bit late... heh heh. So I didn't notice the problem until the last minute, and since we work together I dropped her off at work, ran home took a shower and came back. Tonight I think the plan is to measure the area, then buy the most gnarly battery I can find and install it. That will suck, the cold is a total killer out there right now, you freeze in 30 seconds in this crap. Why do I live here? Blech!

 

You don't need to measure anything. They will have a listing in the book at the store for your car.

 

Damn I must of screwed up on the URL again and logged on to the VW forum. JK

 

Not that easy. My GTI is a SCCA modified racer (still street legal). Battery has been moved into the trunk, in a battery box, which is then tethered down. So I have no idea if this 400amp battery is the OEM specs... I don't think so, I think he wanted the lightest smallest battery he could find, which doesn't help me any. I think I will put a monster in for the winter then use the small one in the summer.