SL/R230: How To Determine Age Of Starter Battery?
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MBWorld Fanatic!
Joined: Jan 2016
Posts: 2,336
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From: Brookshire, Texas & Cat Spring, Texas
2019 SL550/2023 EQS 580 SUV
How To Determine Age Of Starter Battery?
The battery in the trunk of my 2008 SL550 has the usual manufacture date sticker on the side but the MB starter battery is all in German with numbers I cannot discern plus there is the strap covering the middle of the battery. Where is the age date on the starter battery? Thanks...
Junior Member
Joined: Oct 2012
Posts: 73
Likes: 30
From: Greenwich, CT
2008 SL550, 2014 E350 4matic
Last August I replaced the original Varta starter battery in my 2008 SL550 and ran into the same sticker confusion. Clearly, numbers indicated the voltage, CCA, Ahrs, but no date of manufacture. Ah, Germans...
Senior Member
Joined: Aug 2009
Posts: 427
Likes: 57
13 GL350, 14 SL550
It will say something like "504", "204", etc.
Usually you can decipher the number like this.. the first number can be the month (504= May 2004) or the week of he year (204= 20th week of 2004 which is end of May)
Unfortunately you need to pull out the battery to figure it out.
Safest thing is to just replace the battery if you have owned the car for some time, don't know when it was changed, and plan to keep the car. These batteries don't give a lot of warning.. they just die.
I had a starting battery in my W221 (same battery) and thought it cranked and started the engine fine. A few months after buying the car, I saw that the trunk battery was brand new but this starting one looked pretty old. Bought a new one and saw the date code on the old one was 7yrs old.
Here's the thing though..although the old battery sounded fine to me, I realized that I had never heard a W221 start other than my own. The new battery cranks twice as fast and the car fires right up.
Now that I think about it, the old battery was on its last legs. But I had no way of knowing that till I replaced it! People heard that I was gonna replace it and said "why, there's nothing wrong with it.. don't waste $!". They were all wrong...
Good thing I replaced it before winter. Would be surprised if it would have made it through the winter...
