that's a shame Jez, I haven't got a sophisticated charger but mine both came up as normal but will see how long they hold their charge etc, you can look at the cells and see a difference in colour between them, also trapped air that doesn't look right. My "Activation Dates" on box are 04 and 07 month of last year.
Just returned the battery for a £45 refund and then re bought it for a tenner. Its activation date is January 2020, I ll take a chance on it for a tenner.
My activation dates were April and May 2019!!!! If the battery has never been charged over that time properly then It looks like mine will be going back. I tried boost charging my two batteries to see if they would "wake up" and barely anything happened. It seems they were a bad buy and, certainly in my case, I don't think Halfords should have even contemplated selling these at all. I doubt this has done their reputation much good, and certainly not in my eyes.
As a follow up, I have now managed to get both batteries to over 13 volts and they now boost charge. The only thing left to do now is to see whether they can hold a charge for a while, although I somehow doubt that they will, in which case I'll probably take them back at the weekend. This hasn't been a straightforward experience and Halfords are a disappointment to me at the moment.
As a final follow-up, the boost charge (over 50 amps) seems to have worked, at least overnight. I was recording 12.5 to 13.00 volts on the two batteries after leaving them fully off charge overnight. I am going to boost charge them a few more times to check progress and so far there may be a slim chance I can recover both batteries. This might be the way forward, but I realise not everyone has a starter charger that can boost the batteries.
Had mine on charge for a week while I was away using an ancient Optimate, came home and it says it still on weak. Just borrowed a normal car/bike charger and its 1 bar away from full now and showing 14.5V. Will it work..... not sure.
