Best High Quality, Most Dependable Battery Brand(s)?

[RedlandRanger]

Are those current prices in the chart? Seem low

If you look at the video it is 3 years old - I was thinking it was like 1 year old, but YouTube says it was posted 3 years ago.

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[dtech]

If anyone is interested, here are the batteries he reviewed:

For Lead Acid batteries, he chose either the Interstate or the Everstart from Walmart - but notice they are both made by Johnson Controls. For the AGM, as long as you aren't in a cold climate, he picked the Diehard - it didn't do too well in the cold tests, however.

If you want to watch the video to see how he tested, here it is:

I watched the whole thing, 1st project farm ever and to me that dude has a high level of credibility, unlike most youtube vids where after 30 secs you can tell its either bs or a drawn out exercise in superfluous nonsense(tfl). Guy even spoke clearly, used proper grammar and didn't have a scraggly lice infected beard, what is he doing on the internet?

 

[Frenchy]

As long as it hasnt changed the Ford Motocraft batteries have the best warranty available of 100 months total with the first 36 being free replacement.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

If you look at the video it is 3 years old - I was thinking it was like 1 year old, but YouTube says it was posted 3 years ago.

Hi Rob,

There are very a few battery manufacturers. Nearly all the 12-volt car batteries built and sold in the US come from either Clarios, East Penn or Exide, the main manufacturers. This is down from 4 or 5 when I was at Ford and it was flood cell batteries at the time. Excide was the most prolific...Interstate, Cosco and Optima for example as I recall....

Best,
Phil

 

[dtech]

Hi Rob,

There are very a few battery manufacturers. Nearly all the 12-volt car batteries built and sold in the US come from either Clarios, East Penn or Exide, the main manufacturers. This is down from 4 or 5 when I was at Ford and it was flood cell batteries at the time. Excide was the most prolific...Interstate, Cosco and Optima for example as I recall....

Best,
Phil

Exide went chapter 11 some yrs back (for good reasons) and I think someone picked them up. To my knowledge Johnson Controls is the biggest mfg and I think owns the most brands. A lot of batt mfg takes place south of the border.

 

[RedlandRanger]

Hi Rob,

There are very a few battery manufacturers. Nearly all the 12-volt car batteries built and sold in the US come from either Clarios, East Penn or Exide, the main manufacturers. This is down from 4 or 5 when I was at Ford and it was flood cell batteries at the time. Excide was the most prolific...Interstate, Cosco and Optima for example as I recall....

Best,
Phil

Is Clarios or Exide related to Johnson Controls?

 

[Husky44]

I absolutely love Odyssey batteries. I have had incredible good luck with them. 2 weeks ago I finally decided it was time to change the two in my 7.3L diesel. They were still cranking the engine just fine, BUT, they were 13 years old. I decided to treat the old girl to a new pair.

Same here, my 2003 7.3 F250 Odyssey batteries were 11-years old when I sold the truck and still tested at 100%. I installed new Odyssey batteries in all my new vehicles within 6-months of purchase, nothing worse than a bad battery at the worse time.

 

[dtech]

In the project farm vid everstart (wally mart) scores well, same with cr rating. Years back walmart did sell sh*t batteries and exide was their main supplier, that changed when sourced from Johnson Controls , I once bought an exide batt from checker auto and it was a pos.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Is Clarios or Exide related to Johnson Controls?

Hi Rob,

With all the buy and sell of corporations...I am not sure. Johnson Controls is prime for flood cell for sure....

I think that the manufacturer brands like Optima and Walmart are within the specifications of the brand... Like Lincoln, Mercury and Ford...Lincoln got premium "stuff", Mercury next and Ford followed.

The battery brand game is just one of many, like shocks etc. I can tell you that the tires on your OEM vehicle like the exhaust system are not even close to the same "system" when purchased for replacement. You can rarely beat OEM specs....but what I am seeing with batteries worries me....Did Ford take the cheap out road....I am fearful that they did.. The good news....The Ahole at Ford that made these decisions was forced into retirement, December 1.

Best,
Phil

 

[RedlandRanger]

The good news....The Ahole at Ford that made these decisions was forced into retirement, December 1.

Yeah, but is his replacement better, the same or worse? Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't......

I hope Farley's focus on quality has some results, but I'm not optimistic that it will. My fear is that it is just a bunch of words with little action behind them.

 

[P. A. Schilke]

Exide went chapter 11 some yrs back (for good reasons) and I think someone picked them up. To my knowledge Johnson Controls is the biggest mfg and I think owns the most brands. A lot of batt mfg takes place south of the border.

Hi Dt,

Yeah....there is this thing called brand loyality but with batteries....It is all about then name and the specifications...

Yeah, but is his replacement better, the same or worse? Sometimes the devil you know is better than the devil you don't......

I hope Farley's focus on quality has some results, but I'm not optimistic that it will. My fear is that it is just a bunch of words with little action behind them.

Hi Rob,

I share your concens!

Best,
Phil

 

[dtech]

Hi Rob,

With all the buy and sell of corporations...I am not sure. Johnson Controls is prime for flood cell for sure....

I think that the manufacturer brands like Optima and Walmart are within the specifications of the brand... Like Lincoln, Mercury and Ford...Lincoln got premium "stuff", Mercury next and Ford followed.

The battery brand game is just one of many, like shocks etc. I can tell you that the tires on your OEM vehicle like the exhaust system are not even close to the same "system" when purchased for replacement. You can rarely beat OEM specs....but what I am seeing with batteries worries me....Did Ford take the cheap out road....I am fearful that they did.. The good news....The Ahole at Ford that made these decisions was forced into retirement, December 1.

Best,
Phil

Phil I think its mainly the charging logic deep sixing the batts and that logic appears to be driven by the stop/start and a overbearing pursuit of achieving miniscule mpg gains , BMW I believe was at the forefront of stuff like decoupling of the alternator at times and was someone at Ford suitably impressed to join in ?

 

[Blmpkn]

Here's something to think about..

Would a budget tier battery set to charge to a proper percentage be more reliable than a Gucci battery set to only 70%?

 

[RedlandRanger]

An interesting page:

https://www.cartechbooks.com/blogs/techtips/battery

It shows Motorcraft being manufactured by Johnson Controls (and Johnson Controls looks like the 800lb gorilla of batteries)

 

[Stevedbvik1]

This was several years ago but to have 3 fail like that soured me on them forever. I remember the first one only lasted 2 days and they said it had a couple dead cells. Ok stuff happens but the next one only lasted a month then the 3rd one finally made it a year. Now before that I always had Diehard batteries and had good luck with them along with my dad and friends. Maybe they had a bad batch (s) or I just had very bad luck that year.

Was that before or after damper was installed? ?

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