New Battery

[bigrhino]

I'm looking to purchase a new battery. Any suggestions on a good brand?

 

[Ciro]

Sometime ago I found Johnson Controls is the manufacturer of a whole selection of batteries that are offered rebranded on retail (SEARS, COSTCO, WALMART, AUTOZONE) and Johnson controls makes some or all of these batteries as well: Acura, Advance Auto Parts, Autocraft, Western Auto, Tough One, Alliance, American Hardware, Ames, Varta, Blains Farm & Fleet, Battery Alliance, Bosch, Carrefour(Europe), Champion, Amara Raja Batteries LTD(Joint venture with Johnson Controls India). Varta, Optima Batteries, LTH, and Heliar are all battery manufactures owned by Johnson Controls.


Johnson Controls also supplies OEM Batteries to Ford Motor company, Daimler Chrysler, Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and Isuzu.

So when I needed a battery I went to 3 or 4 stores and I verified the recommended battery models, What I can tell you is that they were the same battery with different labels, same enclosure, same terminals and of course same manufacturer.

Finally I got the brand that offered me the best warranty/price, If you decide to buy one of the above brands, Just get the top of the line of any brand, they will probably be same battery, Just try to get the best price and the best warranty possible.

 

[LADenali]

Odyssey and XSPower are the top of the line. I installed an XS, works great.

 

[CrashTestDummy]

Anything that's NOT liquid acid is a good thing. Odyssey, Optima, Braille, just get the nasty liquid acid battery out of your truck.

Liquid acid batteries are bad, m'kay?

 

[bigrhino]

Thanks everyone. Probably going with Optima.

 

[Wake]

Thanks everyone. Probably going with Optima.

Good luck, another Optima will never go into one of my vehicles.

The battery I've had the best luck with has been the Warlmart Everstart series, still lead acid although if you can find one they are supposed to offer an AGM model now. They're the cheapest and they've always lasted me the longest. I never had one leak either.

The other batteries that I'm trying out (I have six vehicles), is the Diehard AGM and the Advance Auto brand AGM. The AA brand in my Audi is almost 3 years now without issue, the Diehard is I believe 4 years (2 of them) and they are holding up just fine.

Outside of the first and last Optima I owned, none of them out of probably a dozen lasted more than a year and even then it was hard to get a warranty replacement. For the last warranty replacement I took it right off the charger and to the store where it failed, they charged it and immediately load tested it and it passed so they wouldn't replace it. I tried to get them to hold it overnight and then retest it in the morning but they wouldn't do it. I ended up letting it sit on a shelf for a year until it was fully dead and wouldn't take a charge before they warrantied it. I bought a Walmart battery in the meantime and it was fine for 3 years before I got rid of the vehicle.

I used to be a diehard Optima guy until they moved production out of the US to Mexico. My first Optima lasted 6 years and was still strong when I got rid of the vehicle. The last one I have (was a warranty replacement for the mentioned "sat on a shelf for a year" battery) is going on 3 years now but sits on a float charger all the time in a vehicle I barely drive.

 

[bigrhino]

Still haven't purchased a new battery yet, but thanks for the info. By the way, what does AGM mean?

 

[CrashTestDummy]

Absorbed Glass Mat.

 

[bigrhino]

Thanks.

 

[SUBURBIAN]

Odyssey.