Batteries

[Ross]

thought I'd start a new thread on this
My criteria for battery purchase is price and warranty. They never last me as long as they should because they are not used enough in my mostly idle fleet. If Wal Mart has the size required that's what I buy, if not Autozone.
I put little stock in the fact that a well regarded manufacturer is behind someones private label as they are invariably built to the sellers spec. usually to a price.
Sears was famous for mentioning that Michelin was building their tires.

"Hello Bib, this is Mr. Sears, in the US. How would you like to build some some cheap tires for us that we could sell at a large profit?"
"We at Mishaleen do not build cheap tires"
"uh huh, I see. How would like to build ten million cheap tires?"
"Oui"

[Tiger]

Autozone... nothing else for me. The price is awesome and no problem with warranty now that they offer 2 or 3 years 100% guarantee. I hears about Wal-Mart many time and the story goes like this... practically no warranty or service... you buy it, you own it and on your own.

[bubba966]

Well, like I said over in Tim's thread I've been happy with Johnson Controls made batteries. Most specifically the ones they make for Costco that have the 100 month warranty. They also make 100 month models for Sears. The Interstates they make are only 85 month. And the ones they build for Autozone are now 7 year warranty, they used to be 5 year.

I went with the Interstate branded Johnson Controls model because Costco doesn't sell the right size, Sears wanted too much $, and last I'd seen Autozone only had the 5 year warranty not to mention it's difficult to find an Autozone around here.

I can't find anything on the Walmart site about auto batteries. What's the warranty & pricing for the group 49 for an E34?

[Bill R.]

bettery then i always use autozone duralast 7 year or 8 year gold , I never ever have warranty problems with autozone and we have them on every corner around here... If the customer is broke or the car is a real beater and they don't have any money to spend on it I use a used interstate from off of their truck, They usually have used , charged and tested batteries for around 23 usd on the interstate trucks.





thought I'd start a new thread on this
My criteria for battery purchase is price and warranty. They never last me as long as they should because they are not used enough in my mostly idle fleet. If Wal Mart has the size required that's what I buy, if not Autozone.
I put little stock in the fact that a well regarded manufacturer is behind someones private label as they are invariably built to the sellers spec. usually to a price.
Sears was famous for mentioning that Michelin was building their tires.

"Hello Bib, this is Mr. Sears, in the US. How would you like to build some some cheap tires for us that we could sell at a large profit?"
"We at Mishaleen do not build cheap tires"
"uh huh, I see. How would like to build ten million cheap tires?"
"Oui"

[tim eh?]

opinions on NAPA batteries anyone? (i think it's too late...)

[bubba966]

opinions on NAPA batteries anyone? (i think it's too late...)

NAPA generally has good quality stuff. Would expect their batteries to be pretty decent as well. Just looked at their site and it's got an 18/75 warranty. So that should be a decent battery. Certainly much better than what you had in their before.

[tim eh?]

NAPA generally has good quality stuff. Would expect their batteries to be pretty decent as well. Just looked at their site and it's got an 18/75 warranty. So that should be a decent battery. Certainly much better than what you had in their before.

thanks - got a 'legend' 91-6 , warranty here is 24/75.
wasn't cheap, but the starter fires like a machine-gun.

[Rick L]

I have always purchased Sears Die Hard batteries. It has always lasted many years more than listed month on battery. It might cost little bit more but it has never failed on me and always ran strong within indicated months.

[bad_manners_god]

thanks - got a 'legend' 91-6 , warranty here is 24/75.
wasn't cheap, but the starter fires like a machine-gun.

Napa can be pricks sometimes:

e.g. My dad didn't buy $5000 worth of parts during 1 month from them so they cut his garage price.

PCA is way better pricing anyways.

[ryan roopnarine]

I have a autozone duralast 3 year that I bought in 08/2003. batteries here usually poop out by the 3rd or 4th year from the heat. the car has sat idle for most of this year, and the battery stopped taking a charge. 10 or 15 cycles with the snap-on battery load tester (carbon pile) a good 18-24 hours on the charger, and it is brick shiathouse again. it is a very resilient battery, it would seem.

[Ross]

I have a autozone duralast 3 year that I bought in 08/2003. batteries here usually poop out by the 3rd or 4th year from the heat. the car has sat idle for most of this year, and the battery stopped taking a charge. 10 or 15 cycles with the snap-on battery load tester (carbon pile) a good 18-24 hours on the charger, and it is brick shiathouse again. it is a very resilient battery, it would seem.
Would you be specific about the cycles with the load tester? This is always happening to me with cars being unused for long periods. I'd really like to be able to save of these batteries.

[Tiger]

Ross, just buy a cheap automatic trickle charger and keep it on the car while not being used... will keep it alive... it doesn't cost much to operate it as it is such a low low consumption.

[Ross]

Ross, just buy a cheap automatic trickle charger and keep it on the car while not being used... will keep it alive... it doesn't cost much to operate it as it is such a low low consumption.

I would need eleven of them.

[ryan roopnarine]

Would you be specific about the cycles with the load tester? This is always happening to me with cars being unused for long periods. I'd really like to be able to save of these batteries.

i've used this method on 3 batteries so far, and so far, i am 3 for 3. one of them is a motorcraft that was in the ford since 2002. it is still functioning well enough for use as a trolling motor battery. the other was a marine battery bought in 2004 (likely made in 2004) that took to it, and is still in service for starting and running the boat. all of them stopped working because they were sitting around. none of them were caused by alternator issues, so i suppose that the chemical reaction and metal deposition were still somewhat reversible. ymmv, though, as you live in a much colder place, and might have a steeper hill to climb.

i am using this item here
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/OBJECTS/54700/54666.JPG&imgrefurl=http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp%3Fsearch%3Dtrue%26item_ID%3D11338%26PartN o%3Dya271%26group_id%3D1492%26supersede%3D%26store %3Dcanada%26tool%3Dall&usg=__7R1gH4aaiIf8keCLLirMpG5aelk=&h=276&w=240&sz=302&hl=en&start=24&um=1&tbnid=ZRrHvbvQ2kPCNM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsnap-on%2Bbatter%2Btester%26start%3D21%26ndsp%3D21%26um %3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

i thought that it was a relic of the 80s, but apparently the snap-on store still sells them. i would think that any hand-held carbon pile would work.

i use a 10 amp automatic, that seems to be sufficient power to get them up again. i would think that you would need to get the battery in room temperature for this to work best. i wouldn't do this with vehicle battery leads attached to the car, that only simulates the parasitic load that killed it in the first place.

after putting the battery on automatic, you'll find that they generally recharge and (the charger) shuts off quickly, because of the battery's issues. at this point, disconnect from the charger, and hit for one cycle of the pile. if it isn't a harbor freight pile, hit it again, minding the temperature of the pile. wait for it to cool down, and hit it a third time. i have had success with 3 hits of the pile initially, and i would suggest that you try the same. i don't know which pile/tester you might be using, so i don't know how long a cycle is for you.

reconnect to the charger. let it automatically fill it back up. disconnect it, and hit it twice with the pile before reconnecting it to the charger. let the charger fill it back up. you should note an increasing amount of time for the charger to replenish the battery as you go along. hit it twice.

reconnect to the charger. this time, however, put the battery on the manual setting (ie, it will keep dumping current into the battery). if your charger doesn't have a manual setting, the marine/deep cycle setting will work for this. leave the battery on for about 2 hours. hit it with the pile twice. reconnect it to the battery charger, but put it on automatic.

repeat the automatic charging procedure with two hits of the pile for every disconnect for about 48 hours. the charge time will increase, then level off if the battery is still serviceable.

the only part of this that you need to babysit is the the manual charge phase. it would probably be prudent to observe the battery temperature with your hands in between cycles. if you start doing this on a friday night, you could probably schedule the hits so that one occurs friday night, saturday morning, saturday at lunchtime (on manual) saturday evening, and sunday morning, and achieve satisfactory results. if you have nothing better to do on sunday, hit it again at lunch and before you go to bed. the automatic helps in this regard, you can leave it hooked up while you sleep that way. this may seem time consuming, but a battery is a tangible amount of money, and this costs you nothing, other than about 30 minutes of your time. it only takes me about 3-5 minutes to complete a cycle, so, at worst, if the battery is completely dead, i've only lost about 1/2 hour out of my life. like i said, ymmv, though i've always had this work.

[Ross]

i've used this method on 3 batteries so far, and so far, i am 3 for 3. one of them is a motorcraft that was in the ford since 2002. it is still functioning well enough for use as a trolling motor battery. the other was a marine battery bought in 2004 (likely made in 2004) that took to it, and is still in service for starting and running the boat. all of them stopped working because they were sitting around. none of them were caused by alternator issues, so i suppose that the chemical reaction and metal deposition were still somewhat reversible. ymmv, though, as you live in a much colder place, and might have a steeper hill to climb.

i am using this item here
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/OBJECTS/54700/54666.JPG&imgrefurl=http://buy1.snapon.com/catalog/item.asp%3Fsearch%3Dtrue%26item_ID%3D11338%26PartN o%3Dya271%26group_id%3D1492%26supersede%3D%26store %3Dcanada%26tool%3Dall&usg=__7R1gH4aaiIf8keCLLirMpG5aelk=&h=276&w=240&sz=302&hl=en&start=24&um=1&tbnid=ZRrHvbvQ2kPCNM:&tbnh=114&tbnw=99&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dsnap-on%2Bbatter%2Btester%26start%3D21%26ndsp%3D21%26um %3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN

i thought that it was a relic of the 80s, but apparently the snap-on store still sells them. i would think that any hand-held carbon pile would work.

i use a 10 amp automatic, that seems to be sufficient power to get them up again. i would think that you would need to get the battery in room temperature for this to work best. i wouldn't do this with vehicle battery leads attached to the car, that only simulates the parasitic load that killed it in the first place.

after putting the battery on automatic, you'll find that they generally recharge and (the charger) shuts off quickly, because of the battery's issues. at this point, disconnect from the charger, and hit for one cycle of the pile. if it isn't a harbor freight pile, hit it again, minding the temperature of the pile. wait for it to cool down, and hit it a third time. i have had success with 3 hits of the pile initially, and i would suggest that you try the same. i don't know which pile/tester you might be using, so i don't know how long a cycle is for you.

reconnect to the charger. let it automatically fill it back up. disconnect it, and hit it twice with the pile before reconnecting it to the charger. let the charger fill it back up. you should note an increasing amount of time for the charger to replenish the battery as you go along. hit it twice.

reconnect to the charger. this time, however, put the battery on the manual setting (ie, it will keep dumping current into the battery). if your charger doesn't have a manual setting, the marine/deep cycle setting will work for this. leave the battery on for about 2 hours. hit it with the pile twice. reconnect it to the battery charger, but put it on automatic.

repeat the automatic charging procedure with two hits of the pile for every disconnect for about 48 hours. the charge time will increase, then level off if the battery is still serviceable.

the only part of this that you need to babysit is the the manual charge phase. it would probably be prudent to observe the battery temperature with your hands in between cycles. if you start doing this on a friday night, you could probably schedule the hits so that one occurs friday night, saturday morning, saturday at lunchtime (on manual) saturday evening, and sunday morning, and achieve satisfactory results. if you have nothing better to do on sunday, hit it again at lunch and before you go to bed. the automatic helps in this regard, you can leave it hooked up while you sleep that way. this may seem time consuming, but a battery is a tangible amount of money, and this costs you nothing, other than about 30 minutes of your time. it only takes me about 3-5 minutes to complete a cycle, so, at worst, if the battery is completely dead, i've only lost about 1/2 hour out of my life. like i said, ymmv, though i've always had this work.

Thanks, off to Harbor frt to see if they have a lower cost tester.
Two of mine are currently candidates for this treatment.
Ross

[ryan roopnarine]

they have one for 15.99 and 14.99, though the cheaper one seems to have better specifications for some reason. both look like knock-offs of the snap on.

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=90636

http://www.harborfreight.com/cpi/ctaf/displayitem.taf?Itemnumber=93784

the black one looks like the better deal.

[Tiger]

11 idle cars? Do you have a barn or something?

[Ross]

No, understanding friends, mooched garage space, etc.

[Ross]

Beginning Ryan's procedure on the weaker battery(2yr old Autozone Gold)with my spiffy Harbar Frt tester. My black 100a model was $15.99, the 50a version was $12.99. Seems they recognized the pricing error.
Stay tuned

[ryan roopnarine]

curious to see if it took or not...

[Mr._Graybeard]

I'm resurrecting this thread because I tried Ryan's battery restoration trick with the load tester and it worked with flying colors. I have a couple Johnson Controls batteries that I'd let go flat to the point where they wouldn't take a charge. After a few cycles alternating between tester and charger, they were fully recovered. Amazing. I was about to take them to the recycler.

Thanks, Ryan. Great tip.

[Ross]

Sorry for not following up, thought I did.
Ryan's method worked for me as well. Thanks Ryan.

[xspeedy]

Wal-Mart is good. I think they have a 2 year 100% replacement and then another five years pro-rate. Don't need a receipt either (at least when we did a swap). They will test the battery to make sure it is bad and just not drained though. Wal-Mart won't just take your word for it.

As I remember though, the price wasn't a lot cheaper than Pep Boys. Not sure about Autozone that many others are recommending.

[John B.]

This past February I finally had to replace the Interstate battery that was in my car when I bought it 9/02. The battery was 1 month shy of 9 years old & I would have bought another one if we had a local dealer. None around here so I put in one of the Autozone batteries.