Best Battery manufacturer

Hiya all,

I'm almost ready to buy a 12v battery for the Beetle resto and wanted to ask the consensus on the best manufacturer of batteries to buy?

Had Exide and they were crap along with RACQ and not a fan of those Yellow and Blue ones Supercheap sell so any other offerings?

Cheers

R & J batteries are good. Their high range is Delkor. I have one in my daily. Works a treat.

I have tried Bond, Century, Excide, and my cars came with nrma and racq. All these sucked except the Bond. The Delkor is my new winner 😀

Only other one I had success with was the old maintained type lead acid Bond. Left it several times over 6-12 month periods and started first go
yes I was shocked too. wtf! 😂 😵 Lasted
few years with this neglect, till my older brother dropped it. Died very quick after the drop as all the plates were smashed 😬

Exide Premium from K-mart are the best I reckon! I can't believe you've had problems with them. The best thing about them is that their normal-sized batteries have recessed terminals so you don't have to pay extra for the European DIN sizes. What problem did you have with your Exide battery? Mine's been great, cost less than a hundred bucks I think, and it's lasted for years in a couple of my cars. I also bought a used Exide out of a car in U-Pull-It, which worked perfectly for the time that I needed it, I just charged it up, put it in my Type 3 and was still going perfectly 6 months later when I sold the car.

The Century in our bus is about 9 years old and still good

In my car I have an Odyssey. It suits what I am doing though.

In the Limo for big power and deep cycle we have a Catterpillar. It lasted 5 years in major drain.

My battery guy recommends AC Delco as the best value

Im with helbus you can get a decade out of a century! Mitchell

psimitar wrote:Hiya all,

I'm almost ready to buy a 12v battery for the Beetle resto and wanted to ask the consensus on the best manufacturer of batteries to buy?

Had Exide and they were crap along with RACQ and not a fan of those Yellow and Blue ones Supercheap sell so any other offerings?

Cheers

Well,
I sold batteries for many years and the crappiest ones were Century... many failures... maybe they have gotten better??

but EXIDE have been My favorite for 20 years...
wouldn't buy anything else...

I buy Mine from BIG W... recessed posts for a VW...
also had EXIDE in My Mitsubishi Lancers & Magna..

There are the cheaper EXIDE with filler plugs on top..
then the ones with the green dot to tell You its OK..
they have 12 month and 24 month warranties..

Now there are the other types...
not called lead acid .... can't remember what they are??

I wouldn't buy a battery with 6 months warranty...
also get the largest battery to fit in the spot...

cheers

LEE




PS: Batteries have gone up in price ^^^^^^^^ the past 12 months ...

matberry wrote:My battery guy recommends AC Delco as the best value

+1 on that.

waveman1500 wrote:Exide Premium from K-mart are the best I reckon!

x2

The Kmart battery thats in dads trike is a good 5 or 6 years old and that's with a crappy vw 30 amp generator too.

I've had a good run with Century batterys, the one in my first Sbug lasted 8 years, my currently my bug has an exide or apex something like that which is 3 years old this month, but the bug sat for 6 months while i swapped the engine so I'm not expecting it to last much longer.

If you get more than 3 years out of a battery these days your doing well, the manufacturers sit the plates closer to the bottom now and the sludge built up touches them and shorts them out alot sooner.

I spent nearly $200 on a sealed maintaince free one in the mainstreamer cos of the electrical load in that car which is coming up on 3 years old, will be interesting to see what I get out of it, I don't reckon it was worth the money

Hi

I have NRMA batteries in my sons bug, at least 2 years old and we used it as fridge battery in our Prado on an outback trip so it was regularly taken down to 10.5 volts, our Prado and Skyline both use NRMA batteries with no issues.

2 or 3 years is all you can usually expect from battery, it also depends on how you treat them, regular long drives and never leaving anything on, no over charging or under charging will make a battery last, under the seat or in the boot is the best place for long lasting batteries.

Steve

The "BEST"?.......OPTIMA are the Ducks Guts.....but they cost!

They will sit there for a year and still kick a large hi-compression race engine, to life.

Read the forums...regular claims of life; 7 to 12 years.

Need a different charging technique - if they are run down, they need a heavy current charge to wake them and then revert to a normal trickle - requires a heavy duty charger to achieve this - a garden variety unit doesn't have enough oomph to wake them up.

The Red Top version is the go for regular street use.

Agent in Brisbane at Rocklea.

Lance.

Yes then there are those 😉 They are one of the best you can buy from what I have heard. Also they are good for weight reduction as the weigh next to nothing.

Yea the Optima has always been a good brand but expensive.

As for the RACQ that failed within a year and Exide from KMart I went through 3 batteries within the warranty period and then it failed 2 months outside the warranty and just went to Turbo batteries. Not fantastic but lasted 2 years now.

So shall look up AC Delco and Delkor with Century as the runner up 🙂

I sell Century batteries and they have improved in the last couple of years,i was coerced into selling the Apollo's and the ones that I used in my transporter lasted about 6 months and left me stuck like a pig 5km from my workshop,the Century agent came out with a battery and that was the end of Apollo's.

All victims of a mass hoax.

I was in a major regional battery suppliers recently and noticed a bench with dispensing rolls of stickers... all the different major brand names on the stickers. I had a peek at the warehouse section and they only had about 3 or 4 different battery styles out the back.

So tell me again which battery brand is better than the other ???

Uber Kafer wrote:All victims of a mass hoax.

I was in a major regional battery suppliers recently and noticed a bench with dispensing rolls of stickers... all the different major brand names on the stickers. I had a peek at the warehouse section and they only had about 3 or 4 different battery styles out the back.

So tell me again which battery brand is better than the other ???

Riiiight... And your explanation for them all having different designs of case would be what?









Obviously, as with most products, the 'store brand' type batteries are going to be most likely the same manufacturer, wherever you buy them, but different manufacturers and designs of battery do exist and they do perform differently.

Joel wrote:

waveman1500 wrote:Exide Premium from K-mart are the best I reckon!

x2

The Kmart battery thats in dads trike is a good 5 or 6 years old and that's with a crappy vw 30 amp generator too.

I've had a good run with Century batterys, the one in my first Sbug lasted 8 years, my currently my bug has an exide or apex something like that which is 3 years old this month, but the bug sat for 6 months while i swapped the engine so I'm not expecting it to last much longer.

If you get more than 3 years out of a battery these days your doing well, the manufacturers sit the plates closer to the bottom now and the sludge built up touches them and shorts them out alot sooner.

I spent nearly $200 on a sealed maintaince free one in the mainstreamer cos of the electrical load in that car which is coming up on 3 years old, will be interesting to see what I get out of it, I don't reckon it was worth the money

You will get a shock when replacement time comes..
as a 2 year warranty EXIDE Will set You back $130++++
can't remember the prices but they have increased somewhat

in the zero temperatures in winter..
I put My trickle charger on My battery to keep it up to 12 volts as I don't drive it every day... sometimes not for weeks and the cold really affects lead acid batteries...

EXIDE & CHAMPION batteries are the same....

Lee

i get about two and a half year's out of a super cheap battery, the price is right and when it fail's you replace it.

Geez, sounds like they are all good if you keep them charged, I use a 5watt solar panel to trickle spare batteries in my shed, keeps them always topped up. AGM batteries are good but expensive, I think Optima are AGM (absorbed glass mat) no maintenance apart from charging.

You would think with all the advances in technology that they could have improved the plain jane car battery over the last 30 or so years but no.

Even all these fancy new batteries makes me wonder some just don't seem that crash hot
classic example I've spent the last 6 hours sitting on a mower listening to my Ipod which has a Lithium battery and it was fully charged to start with but ended up in power saver mode after that.
Its only reading from a hard drive with absolutely no moving parts at all 🙄

Going back to the 80s here but I remember being the coolest kid in school with the Sony walkman I got for christmas, that had more moving parts than a frigging VW engine yet ran for decades on 2 AA batteries 🤪

[/end rant]

Nobody wants to make a battery that last, after all they are in the business of Selling batteries. 🤪

ian.mezz wrote:Nobody wants to make a battery that last, after all they are in the business of Selling batteries. 🤪

TRUE!!!

This is very true that the manufacturers will put themselves out of business if the batteries last too long. One of the original batch of Optima batteries was apparently used in a daily-driven pickup truck for nearly 20 years, and was still going okay when they swapped it for a new one with the owner to acquire it as a piece of company history.

Used to work at an autobarn and saw heaps of dead batteries.
if i were on a budget then i would buy a supercharge or R&J (ac delco). you can pick up a supercharge anywhere and they are lead acid so easy to charge and well priced. had 2 in previous cars and well over 5 years on each.
the AC delco batteries have been real good too. another 2 cars (one current) 7 years on first. they are calcium so dont like normal chargers but i have never had to charge one. not sure how supply is in qld.
R&J now sell Fullriver glass mat sealed batteries and they are fantastic.
have had one sitting in the shed for 9 months now and was super impressed how easy it was to start dads kombi and then my 914 right after.
not cheap but their slimline batteries will fit anywhere and give super power (hold 1100amp for 5 secs if i remember right).
then if you want super light weight then porsche has the answer for you.
http://www.porsche.com/usa/aboutporsche/pressreleases/pcna/?lang=none&pool=international-de&id=2009-11-23-02
sorry for the essay.
edwin

SPG guy wrote:then if you want super light weight then porsche has the answer for you.
http://www.porsche.com/usa/aboutporsche/pressreleases/pcna/?lang=none&pool=international-de&id=2009-11-23-02
edwin

Blimey! 2499 Euros for a car battery! Those German fellows surely do know how to apply a mark-up to options and accessories. I haven't seen a lithium ion car battery before though, so it's interesting to see them offering one.

Joel wrote:You would think with all the advances in technology that they could have improved the plain jane car battery over the last 30 or so years but no.

Even all these fancy new batteries makes me wonder some just don't seem that crash hot
classic example I've spent the last 6 hours sitting on a mower listening to my Ipod which has a Lithium battery and it was fully charged to start with but ended up in power saver mode after that.
Its only reading from a hard drive with absolutely no moving parts at all for fuxake 🙄

Going back to the 80s here but I remember being the coolest kid in school with the Sony walkman I got for christmas, that had more moving parts than a frigging VW engine yet ran for decades on 2 AA batteries 🤪

[/end rant]

people don't realise that all those hundreds of thousand of transistors that are constantly turning you digital song into an analogue signal and then amplifying takes a lot of watts.
And old cassette desk was the drive motor and direct amplification of the analogue signal stored on the tape.

Will check out Delco's QLD suppliers but otherwise a $150 Century it may well be 🙂

John Deere makes batteries...

they are expensive but Very well made... to do the best job with a lead acid battery..

I heard You can buy chinese batteries too..

I've never had one so don't know of their quality..

I suppose to make a better battery would cost more than double or triple the price of a standard Lead acid battery..

so, they keep making the CHEAPER ones...

they are also still very heavy...

LEE

Try Batteries ASAP, Tony on 0408 876 666, if he can't help you directly, he will be able to tell you where to get what you need.

My first beetle came with its original battery . This was in '74 and the beetle was made in'72, the battery was a Varta with the connection for the computer diagnosis on it. This battery was still going strong in '88 when I left England. I never put it on charge for any reason, I only ever had a dynamo in my car and it would have been subject to a hell of a lot of cold starts as well. I remember a mate had to buy a new battery over there so I said Id never had a problem, but when he tried to buy a Varta battery the price was astronomical. On a different note though my eldest son (a ricer,I'm sad to say) bought a calcium battery for his Mitsubishi Legnum and it cost him over $600! So as for the best battery it still looks like you get what you pay for. My buggy used to go through batteries at a ridiculous rate but since getting a Cranky kits starter it has been as good as gold and maybe one day I might even update to an alternator!

CENTURY last very well. I get them from Beaurepaires Tyreshops, may be dear, but very helpful staff in Vic anyway, & will get just the right one for you, and change it if for another ANY problems. They always last at least 5-6 years, or more. (I always charge them every month or so over Melb's cold winters.)
The only Really Bad one i've had was from RACV Direct. That was years ago, the top wasn't stuck to the casing properly and slowly leaked acid all over Brutus's until then unmarked, oiriginal floorpan. In a couple of weeks it had ruined it... The man who replaced it didn't want to, grumbled a lot, and then said it was... all my fault! Somehow I'd made the top get loose! When I convinced him I hadn't touched it, he explained they were just cheapies from Asia...! Actually had two of them in different cars, both only lasted 2 or 3 years I think. They might have changed since of course, but I'll only ever DIY now, even in an "emergency".

Looks like a Century then. Now just to see if anywhere is cheaper than Supercheap @ $150 🙂

Hi

WHAT SIZE BATTERY?

How many CCA's..??

Recessed posts??

how long a warranty?

LEE




I always get my EXIDE from Big W...

68AutoBug wrote:Hi

WHAT SIZE BATTERY?

How many CCA's..??

Recessed posts??

how long a warranty?

LEE




I always get my EXIDE from Big W...

Size - biggets that'll fit

CCA - much as possible

Recessed posts - I'd rather not

EXIDE - only if bought for me as my experience has tarnished their name beyond ever spending my own money on them again until faith is restored by an EXIDE freebie 🙂

psimitar wrote:Recessed posts - I'd rather not

If it's going into a Beetle then you definitely should have a battery with recessed posts. Many Bugs have caught fire due to the owners fitting batteries without recessed posts. When the posts stick up they can come into contact with the seat springs and short out the battery, potentially causing battery damage and/or fire. Either way, make sure you have something non-conductive over the top of the battery.

DEKA....8 years and still going strong!!!

waveman1500 wrote:

psimitar wrote:Recessed posts - I'd rather not

If it's going into a Beetle then you definitely should have a battery with recessed posts. Many Bugs have caught fire due to the owners fitting batteries without recessed posts. When the posts stick up they can come into contact with the seat springs and short out the battery, potentially causing battery damage and/or fire. Either way, make sure you have something non-conductive over the top of the battery.

Doesn't matter if the posts are recessed as if someone sits there arse down hard enough it'll still short across them. I just fitted a polycarbonate cover over the battery and job done 🙂

Or change the terminal ends (?) on the cables for the quick release type from a boat shop, as I did on my sons baja, they have plastic covers on them and even the Qld Transport guys said it was a good idea.

ancientbugger wrote:Or change the terminal ends (?) on the cables for the quick release type from a boat shop, as I did on my sons baja, they have plastic covers on them and even the Qld Transport guys said it was a good idea.

That does sound quite a good idea. You only really need to change the positive one though, doesn't matter what the earth strap hits. Most beetles still have the braided non-insulated earth straps anyway.

I think I changed both so when he wants to take the earth cable off it's easier or they came in a pack of two🤪

I have a positive terminal that allows seperate Starter, regulator, Ignition relay and Starter relay.

I've a modern modular fusebox with relays to take the strain from the 50 yr old switches 😉

While I do not usually recommend manufacturers, I have had very good experience with Odessey batteries, while they cost over $100 more they are smaller and can be placed in any orientation. The two I have had have been extremely reliable.
My old RX7 used to kill batteries until I switched to these