[MerlinL14]

I have had starting problems, stemming from Sept last year when I went to Sweden for 2 weeks. My dash cam is set to be active when parked and I forgot to change the setting while I was away. Came back to a flat battery, really flat! The starting problems have been accelerated by this cold weather so my car was in for an MOT today (6 month deferred due to covid lockdown), I asked for one of their free battery checks and after putting a 'gizmo' on the battery and running through the sequence of tests it came back that the battery was at 30% capacity. A new stop start battery same specs as the Kia one came out at £258.00 fitted, a bit steep but I knew that stop start batteries were not cheap. 5 years, I think is quite good for a high discharge battery life, not so impressed with the price of a new one though. No reprogramming or having to 'tell' the car through the ODB port, just plug and play.

 

[Joey1]

Does the dash cam not have a voltage protector, ? mine are aftermarket fitted by myself in the Land Rover, the "Hard wire" kit comes with a device where you select the voltage at which it stops filming and protects the battery but it always has park mode activated unless you add a switch to stop it. Here on the Isle of Man I don't want the camera on at home only when parked in certain places or if we ever come "across" again, we have no real car theft here the keys stay in the car most of the time, I also fitted my own central locking as its a 5 door 110 (again probably only ever lock it certain times or if "across") so I wired in a micro lever switch and an interior light delay timer with a relay to the CL. Basically the cameras are normally wired as supplied always go into park mode and rely on the battery voltage drop protection, what mine has now is: if you lock the doors within 10 secs (adjustable to suit) the camera is in park mode, if you wait longer than the 10 secs the doors lock the alarm sets but the cameras are off. If we never come across again it will have been a waste of time,effort and money ha ha (all my keys are in all the cars, on the bright side I never misplace them or have to hunt for them.)

 

[Joey1]

I only fit Yuasa batteries and without a trade discount looking at one for the stop start Sportage is from £116.99 on a quick search if it's the right one. YBX9096. Obviously you have to fit it, but if as you say plug and play it's hardly difficult I would think ?