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I am a big believer in DieHard batteries but I don't buy the cheap ones. I get good life out of them and I can always find a Sears store.

Regardless of what brand you buy, absorbed glass mat or wet cell, they are all manufactured by 3 companies in the USA. Johnson Controls builds and labels the Optima brand along with a host of other private labels. Exide does the same. The last one is Delphi. I am fairly certain they are still making batteries but they may have gone away in all the bail-outs since they were an arm of GM.

Actually now its just 2. Delphi unloaded their battery business and it was bought by Johnson Controls.

anygunanywhere wrote:Diesels go through batteries like kids through a jar of cookies. I have a battery load tester I bought to test my batteries and it also has an alternator tester. I might give those red top batteries Chas admires next time around. I bought gel cells for the RV and they have lasted longer than any lead acid battery I ever had.

Great thread.

Guy stuff.

For a diesel, you want the yellow tops (deep cycle). That's what I'm running in my 04 Dodge... two of 'em.

Keith B wrote:

Cedar Park Dad wrote:As I've had to replace two dead batteries in the last two weeks this is of keen interest to me.
Where do you find these at? I've a boy going back to Aggieville end of summer and its probably a good time to drop in a new battery for his car.

Sam's Club carries them, that's wehre I get mine. Maybe Costco as well. I assume that maybe Autozone or O'Reilys does too.

I got mine at Sam's Club also and it was around $180.

Chas.

nightmare69 wrote:Battery tenders are your friend if you have a weekend only car. My last battery lasted over 8yrs before I replaced it.

I have a battery tender on my bike but trust me when I say don't cheap out or you may be damaging the battery over time.

talltex wrote:. . . I turned the key I heard and felt a loud bang...saw smoke coming out from under the hood, opened it and the positive cable on the battery was melted onto the terminal and the top of the battery case had been blown apart so the seam along one side was separated from the base. THAT was the first time I'd ever seen one do that, in spite of all those years of not wearing any kind of protective glasses or anything else when jump starting them.

Thanks for posting this!! Like most gearheads, I've jumped hundreds of batteries for folks over the years and for many of those years, I never wore safety glasses. That all changed in the late 70's when I saw and heard a battery explode and send acid and shrapnel all over. Thank God (literally) that I and the lady who owned the car walked away while her son tried to start the car. If we'd been standing at the fender watching, we could easily have been blinded by the explosion. The threat is real folks.

Thanks again talltex!
Chas.

il Condottiero wrote:

nightmare69 wrote:Battery tenders are your friend if you have a weekend only car. My last battery lasted over 8yrs before I replaced it.

I have a battery tender on my bike but trust me when I say don't cheap out or you may be damaging the battery over time.

Yes. You need to get a automatic battery tender. Mine was 40 bucks.

talltex wrote: ...I carry a spare battery to fit my truck and one to fit my wife's Jeep in my tool box at all times.

Interesting. How long does a battery last on the shelf...or in the tool box... when it is not being used?

talltex wrote:Last year, we drove my wife's 11 month old Grand Cherokee 30 miles to eat supper in Waco and when we came out and I turned the key I heard and felt a loud bang...saw smoke coming out from under the hood, opened it and the positive cable on the battery was melted onto the terminal and the top of the battery case had been blown apart so the seam along one side was separated from the base.

Been there done that. Randolph AFB in 2000-something, drove across base, parked, went inside for 15 min, came back out, turned the key, and BANG. Smoke. Had my fire extinguisher handy when I opened the hood, but happily the only problem was a destroyed battery and some of the padding/insulation on the inside of the hood was missing. I was always pretty safety-conscious when jumpstarting others, wearing glasses and if possible making the last connection on something besides the battery, but that event reinforced the procedure.

I have AAA and I guess I usually wait until they die except for my F-250 Diesel. It has two batteries and when Grand Prairie Ford says change them I leave Ford and drive to Sam's (get a second opinion) and have them replaced.

When people use the term battery tender I would recommend a BatteryMINDer Model 12248 which I consider the cream of the crop in battery restoration and charging for 12 v automotive use. I had one of their aviation models and an aircraft battery with a 1-2 year life normally lasted 5 years ( and those are expensive battery's). I use this charger on flooded, AGM and Gel battery's. Aviation Consumer rated them tops for aircraft battery's. Not cheap but they work well. I have restored battery's that would otherwise have been replaced using this charger. You also can not overheat the battery as there is a thermostat built into the charger to make sure it doesn't get too hot. Highly recommended. Check them out.

ELB wrote:

talltex wrote: ...I carry a spare battery to fit my truck and one to fit my wife's Jeep in my tool box at all times.

Interesting. How long does a battery last on the shelf...or in the tool box... when it is not being used?

I usually give them a slow charge after 3 months, but I don't think I've ever carried one for more than 6 months before I used it in something. When I need to replace a battery on something in inventory, I use one out of the toolbox if it fits, and then replace it with a new one at that time, so they are continually being rotated out. If it's a top post, they don't usually stay in toolbox long enough to need a charge. I was driving a GMC HD2500 4x4 Crew Cab for a couple of years, and because GM's are about the only ones that use the sidemount screw in terminals, I didn't rotate through them as fast, and did give them a charge occasionally.

In my Jeep I run an Optima Red Top. I have seen batteries explode and do other weird things. The vehicle itself is as much a factor in battery life as the battery, operating conditions, operator, and maintenance.

I am currently doing a resto-mod on a '76 Cobra II (Looks like the one Farrah Fawcett drove in the Charlies Angles TV show). As a kid I remember that car blowing up two batteries at the same location about six months apart. I also remember it blowing up cheap batteries on a rather frequent basis. As part of my resto-mod I pulled the engine bay wiring harness out and was going over it with a fine toothed comb when I discovered why the car liked to kill batteries. The alternator and battery on located on the right side of the engine bay, the are connected by two leads that run all the way around the engine bay to about half way down the left side of the engine bay where they meet two other leads where they are all connected together with a fusible link. The link was about half burned out and had melted into some of the regulator wiring which ran in the same harness. I showed the damaged wiring to a friend who knows ford charging systems and the first thing he asked me was "How long did batteries last and how many of them exploded?"

My previous vehicle was a 1998 Ford Ranger and it would get about 3 years on a quality battery and about 6 on a cheap one. When I replaced the battery in my 1991 Suburban 4x4, which I recently sold, the old battery was 8 years old and only died after someone shorted it out trying to jump start another vehicle improperly. A good friend of mine has a 2001 Chevy 1500 with the original battery going strong.

One thing many folks overlook is the status of the battery terminals...ie - are they corroded, have they been cleaned lately, are the connections firm/tight? One of my favorite (and well-used tools) is a battery terminal/post cleaner. A can of Coke does wonders to clean the corrosion off a worn terminal then use a rag to clean it up and then use the tool to clean the posts and terminals...getting rid of the corrosion/aged metal and tightening the connections does wonders for a battery! I once had an issue with a Jeep, everyone thought it was the starter, put a new starter on it, nope, not the issue. It was a worn battery cable, it went bad internally, crazy stuff! Replaced the cable and all was fine! Side note: on a dual battery system, ie - diesel truck - when one battery fails I've found that it is prudent to replace both. Costco/Sam's is your friend!

il Condottiero wrote:

nightmare69 wrote:Battery tenders are your friend if you have a weekend only car. My last battery lasted over 8yrs before I replaced it.

I have a battery tender on my bike but trust me when I say don't cheap out or you may be damaging the battery over time.

Sorry whats a battery tender?

Cedar Park Dad wrote:

il Condottiero wrote:

nightmare69 wrote:Battery tenders are your friend if you have a weekend only car. My last battery lasted over 8yrs before I replaced it.

I have a battery tender on my bike but trust me when I say don't cheap out or you may be damaging the battery over time.

Sorry whats a battery tender?

http://batterytender.com/resources/why-battery-tender/