$49 Battery 24F 1-yr new at WalMart in Greensburg, PA near Pittsburgh

[bananahamuck]

I buy my batteries at Costco as well, they seem to hold up they best i have found..   That,,,  and it is worth the drive just for a Costco dog,,  and pop.

[flatcat19]

I buy my batteries at Costco as well, they seem to hold up they best i have found..   That,,,  and it is worth the drive just for a Costco dog,,  and pop.

 

Don't lie. You go to see güber in a hair net.

[tr8er]

I buy my batteries at Costco as well, they seem to hold up they best i have found.. That,,, and it is worth the drive just for a Costco dog,, and pop.

I'm going there for lunch today

[MicroMachinery]

Sometimes I really miss stealership perks

[bananahamuck]

Don't lie. You go to see güber in a hair net.

 

 

Too far,, i go to the one where Goldfish101 and Vorasch are today.

[Cardinal Grammeter]

COSTCO's chocolate layer cake kicks SAM's in the butt.

 

AGM:  They have been around for a long time.  PC UPS's use them.  But here is a dirty little secret about the AGM:  They do go dry and you can keep them running maybe 2x as long IF you open the cells and add enough water to keep the "sponge" soaked.

 

I've recovered AGM's that have gone dry or just low on water - especially if they sat around new and were never used.  Once sulfation starts, it is a hideous thing to see in those batteries.

 

As far as getting what you paid for, well, that is the best you can hope for.  Usually you don't get what you paid for.  I can only imagine what batteries would cost if there was no warranty.  And then there are the improvements that don't make it into auto batteries, like the anti-shorting membranes that can be placed between the cells.  Costs maybe $1 a battery and would eliminate shorts.  They say Interstate put sodium sulfate in their batteries for a number of years then quit.  There is a guy selling it on eBay for $9 delivered for 1# and I asked for the specs on it and got no answer.  I'm trying to figure out how I could test what I got to be sure it was the right stuff before I put it in the battery.

[Rjawm]

All this talk of similar batteries between different manufacturers got me thinking about these 2 I found,

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B010T866D2/

 

$192.80

 

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008QDK0RQ/

 

$162.52

 

They seem to be identical minus the label and price, both are decent manufacturers, just curious if anyone might have some insight into them.

[nismo dr]

what I like about walmart batteries: if I see one, I know the owner is a cheap ass and I don't need to waste my time shaking their car down too hard :poke:

but seriously never seen a brand leak so quickly

[nismo dr]

well those and local Columbia Batteries, I swear they leak as soon as they  take them off the shelf

[Cardinal Grammeter]

Keep in mind that AGM batteries do run dry and it is common practice to open the small ones like in computer UPS's, and add water.  I've recovered many of these batteries, both old ones and new ones that sat on the shelf new until they would not charge.

 

The best for AGM's is to add water every 1-2 years.

 

I was in Home Depot and they had batteries way under $100, definitely in the $70's and maybe under $70 I think.

[purple]

Since I work at Walmart, I can tell you different regions batteries come from different manufacturers. Our NorCal stuff comes from Johnson Controls, and they make the same batteries for our more expensive competition. I have seen a lot of crappy ones come from SoCal, but I dont remember which company makes them down there, definitely not the same as we sell at our store.

[maltese]

Main suppliers in the U.S. are East Penn, Exide, and Johnson Controls. They supply the retailers, and build the batteries to suit each retailer's needs. This is partially why there are differences in price, for batteries made by the same supplier. All batteries are not created equal.

[DanielC]

This is the battery I am using in Ratsun, my daily driver.  I got it from Pick-n-Pull.  I think I paid around $35.00 for it.

This is a sticker that is on the side of the battery.

 

This is a battery I am using in Dragon, a project truck, that can move itself, but is nowhere close to being street legal, but I can drive it on my property.

 

This is a closer look at the top of the battery in Dragon.  It is a Kirkland "Costco" battery, from the Wilsonville, OR. Costco.   This battery was originally bought, and installed in a moored boat, and the owner of the boat felt it was no longer reliable in the boat.   I got it for free.  It is a 100 month warranty battery, that is 8.3 years.

 

Both trucks start and crank good.   You may notice oversized battery cables on the batteries.  More on that, later.  Both batteries are group 34 sized.

 

Most of the time, our old Datsuns have an advantage over newer cars.  When our Datsun is turned off, there is no current drain on the battery.  No electronics to keep information stored in from the last time the car was ran.  This helps with battery life.

 

About the bigger cables.   The biggest load we put on a battery is the starter.  The starter, like almost all electric motors wants as high of a voltage as it can get, that it was designed for.  In fact, some electric motors, like starter motors like even higher voltage.  I have an old Ford 8N tractor that I converted from 6 volts to 12 volts, and it is starting very easily, and has for about 15 years since I did the conversion.

 

If you have small cables in the cranking circuit of a car, the high cranking current through the cables causes a voltage drop from the resistance of  the cables.  12 volts at the battery becomes 10 volts at the starter.  The starter motor is designed to do the work required to crank your engine.  Electrical work is measured in Watts.  Watts is Amps times Voltage.   If your starter cannot get the volts it wants, it draws more amps.   And higher amps being drawn through the battery cables causes the voltage to drop even farther.

More amps being drawn from the battery also means the battery voltage when cranking is lower.  This means less voltage for the ignition system, making the engine harder to start.  Did I mention that small battery cables, or a lower voltage at the starter also cause the engine to crank slower?  The slower cranking makes the engine harder to start. 

It is amps flowing in a circuit, and through the the starter that create heat in all those components.  It is heat, and amps that wear out brushes, contacts and other parts in the starter.  It is heat that makes connections corrode faster.

 

But there is more.  If your car takes longer to start after cranking it, and draws more current when cranking, the alternator has to put more current back into the battery to charge it.  More alternator current, more drag on the barely running cold engine.

 

So that is why I take the time to make battery cables that are way too big.

[Cardinal Grammeter]

I got really upset about my $48 WalMart battery.  I bot some sodium sulfate from the internet and was going to add it to the cells.  But when I looked at the battery, it was constructed more like a small AGM.

 

There is a sticker over the top.  Under the sticker, there are small about 1/2" diameter plastic "discs" that are probably solvent welded to the case.  With the small AGMs, I get them off by butchering them out with a wood chisel.  Sometimes they come out real easy, other times, they get manged a bit.

 

So I decided not to remove them because of the warranty.  I guess I could still dig them out and could always put them back, sand down the burrs, and put the label back on.  But I decided not to do it.

 

The amount of sodium sulfate to add is .5 to .6 times the battery weight in pounds, in grams per cell.  EX:  40# battery:  .5 * 40 = 20 grams per cell of sodium sulfate.

 

This should only be done with a new or newish battery.  If tried in an old battery, plate shorting is risked.

 

NOTE:  I joined AAA and they had batteries for sale.  They were built EXACTLY like the WM battery!  Also remember that Home Depot (or was it Lowes) also has batteries too.

[KoHeartsGPA]

You get what you pay for.

[Cardinal Grammeter]

I was in Sam's Club and their Duracell auto batteries look identical to the WM  $48 (and also identical to the AAA battery.)

 

I'm going to peel the label, crack the caps open, and add 20g of the sodium sulfate per cell.