Car Batteries

[MrMikeL]

Looking for recommendations on car batteries. I have a 5+ year old car, and the first cold day of the season really put some stress on the old electrolytes. Which brand is best, in your opinion??


Thanks for the help!!

[Bovon]

In my opinion, there is not a whole lot of difference in labels on auto batteries. There are not but a few manufacturers of batteries, and they label them for hundreds of different vendors.

When I need a battery, I generally check out the auto parts places and get the best price/sale going for a HD 5 year battery...about 500 Ampere hours or more, ect. The electrolite isn't what peters out in a battery...its the lead in the plates that are eaten up over time...these lead particals flake off and sink to the bottom of the case..two things now happen, either the lead plates get so thin that they cannot hold a charge, or the particals at the bottom build up and touch the bottom of whats left of the positive and negative plates...shorting them out...creating a "dead" cell.

[HfdWolfPack]

Have you looked at these?
Optima

I also remember reading Consumer reports a couple years ago that The Batteries at Walmart....yes, Walmart, were among the better batteries. Also AC Delco were up there too.

[johnpaul]

If your battery lasted 5 years in Minnesota, you really got your money's worth. In zero degree weather, the power of a battery is cut in half. That means a new 500 Amp/hr unit will have 250 Amp/hrs available at zero degrees. So if your battery is a couple of years old and has lost some of its original strength, it may not have enough juice to do the trick in cold weather.

JP

[MrMikeL]

Ah, I never thought of a mega store for a battery, but now my options just got much larger. Fleet Farm has good products at great prices. And I shouldn't count Sears out either, I suppose.

Thanks for all the input thus far. I was hoping to find a battery comparison website, but haven't had any luck. Anyone know of one?

I agree that it's highly likely that batteries are manufactured by just a few companies but labelled for many resellers. That makes it difficult to know just what you're getting. It's like the Whirlpool/Kenmore/KitchenAid appliance paradigm - all manufactured by one company. Or like Generous Motors - some cars come off the same assembly line but have a different hood ornament!!

[MrMikeL]

Johnpaul,

Toyota original equipment - not bad!! 5+ years and over 100,000 miles! But I don't plan on paying a premium for a Toyota battery when they are cheaper in the after market. besides, they get too much money from me on maintenance anyway.

[thekingofpain]

Ive had a few Sears Die-Hards and seem to get beyond the rated use with them---the cold is a battery killer, a few years back a friend that owns a Napa store got a pallet of "test" batterys that had a new mixture of oil and electrolyte in them, supposedly great for freezing weather, being in Calif we dont really need them, maybe they are available in your area and a better option...

[Bovon]

Hey thekingofpain, thats interesting about adding of oil to the electrolite in car batteries. In my job, I dealt with many different types of batteries. In the last 20 or so years, we started adding a small amount of vegetable oil to the electrolite...maybe 1/8th to 1/4th inch, which floated on top. The purpose was, to reduce the fumes from leaving the interior of the battery case during charge. This causes everything in the near vicinity of the battery to corrode up and turn green. This was a never ending maintainence problem with our equipment...so, I suspect the oil added to car batteries do much the same thing, because the corrosion of the battery terminals cause a lot of failures. The fumes from a sulfuric acid car battery is hydrogen..highly corrosive

[cadetstimpy]

A marine battery may cost more, but it will last longer.....

[Cruez]

I dont live in an extremely cold region, but I usually get a battery with at least 1000 cold cranking amps. Not nessesary on newer cars, but anything with a higher than normal compression will need it. I built a Datsun 280Z and upped the compression from about 8:1 to about 10.5:1 I had to get a 1150 CCA battery and a good set of 00 gauge battery cables to get that baby going.....even in the summer..

[Bovon]

jeeeze, Cruez... I would loved to have had that engine in my old pickum-up-truck..

I have helped build a couple of racing engines, and I know where you are coming from