Technical Farewell to a Great Battery

Ahh, now I understand. The re-pops I had the problems with were regular "wet" batteries. Before I retired, I had a few "good years" and one spring I bought reproduction Delco batteries for both of my Corvettes and my el Camino. None went 3 years. It wasn't me, because I know how to take care of batteries and have had some "regular batteries" go ten years.

It will be interesting to see how your new one holds up.

 

Fifteen years and counting on an Optima red top in my 53 Belair. I know that when it finally dies, I'm going to be disappointed in it's replacement.

 

Truck Dr . , you ain’t kidding about a Harley battery , 1 1/2 was tops until AGM came out . Today I advise everyone don’t use anything else . I have had to kick my brains out because the old tanks , “ new “ battery is sluggish . Once they light don’t shut it off and don’t look in the mirror , forward only to home

 

When i worked in salina kansas, one of my clients was Exide Battery. They had a manufacturing plant there. They made all different car batteries, exide, diehard, etc. Now operated by Stryten Manufacturing.

 

I bought an off topic German car that was manufactured in Nov ‘01. The battery was manufactured in Oct ‘01. I replaced that battery when the car was 17 years old only because I thought I was testing my luck. I intended to put the old battery on a tender but forgot. If I had the white battery may have very well lasted until today!

 

I get 4 years on mine, I ride as a daily driver my 2021 has 52000 miles. My average has be 18k a year for 21 years. Also I tighten my ground every oil change.

 

No luck with car batteries, but our riding lawn mowers battery is from 2012 & still works.

 

Distilled water....

 

When I was a kid my dad would buy 2 year batteries and replace them every 3 years.

 

Well my new Ford script battery just arrived this afternoon so we will have to see how long it lasts. I haven’t even opened it but the place told me they had it on the charger before it left. Apparently the AGM batteries are not fully charged yet when manufactured?!? I was also told to buy a special type of charger to keep a maintenance charge on it when it’s just sitting in the garage not doing anything during the winter and if I did that then it should last a long time.

 

I have heard that AGM batteries do not work well with generators… I have never tried it. Is there any truth to that?

 

Last two batterys I replaced were in vehicles that sat all winter with no trickle charge and lasted 12 yr on one and 13 yr on the other. Both out of NAPA. About 4 yrs ago so the batterys were purchased in the late 1990's.

 

No. I am on my third Optima since the mid nineties, so each one has lasted 12 or 13 years. The car is a 1951 Ford with a stock generator/ regulator system. Also, I have always used regular old maintainers to keep them up (in Minnesota) while I am in Florida for 6 months each winter. One thing I do is to put all of my maintainers on a cheap mechanical timer that suppliers power to them for 15 minutes twice a day. I do this because I once had a maintainer on a boat battery go bad and "boil" the battery.