Which Manufacturer Makes The Most Reliable Car Battery?
 

I may be cursed, but I seem to average about three years in each of my cars until the battery craps out. So, I'm looking for the longest-lasting and most reliable battery made. I don't really care about the cost.

Thanks.

I used to always get Interstate but it seems like their prices have gone up and their quality has gone down. Lately I have been getting Kirkland at Costco since they have a good warranty and get very good reviews.

Most batteries are made by one or two facilities and then OEM tagged by resellers anyway.

By the way, if cost is no object an Optima Yellowtop gel battery is generally considered very long lasting


http://www.optimabatteries.com/us/en...cts/yellowtop/

http://www.optimabatteries.com/us/en/

Optima Red Top batteries are real popular with the off-road guys.

I've always gone with Sears Die Hard Heat batteries for my jeep, get 4-6 years out off them. But I'm dealing with a different climate. Don't know if that makes a difference.

Yep.

I just buy whatever Autozone or Advance has.

True, like antifreeze. But don't they build them to different specs depending on client?

I wouldn't recommend Optima at all. Our shop was sponsored by Optima and we had nothing but problems with the red tops. They gave us 5 batteries , 3 of them had to be returned because they had bad cells in them and couldn't keep a charge. The shop i work next to right now has had similar experiences.

Interstate has never let us down though.

CP expects a higher grade of antifreeze

Well ****ing played.

I've never used them; just going by stuff I've read on car forums. Most of the recommendations I've seen have been for the Yellowtop over the Redtop. I don't know if that would have made a difference in your case. They are expensive batteries, in any case.

I had some problems with the last Interstate and they are well over $100 around here so switched to Kirkland, though we went with a Honda battery when my wife's CR-V needed one. It wasn't any more expensive than an aftermarket battery and was guaranteed to fit perfectly (really tight battery location). We got six years out of the first one.

Three years? My car is 13 years old and I'm only on my second battery, and I'm not even sure of that. I think I replaced it about five or six years ago.

The way the Optima rep explained it to me was the color of the top signifies what the battery is suppose to be used for.

Red Tops are for your basic Hot Rod, Daily Driver, SUV etc. Your basic car battery.

Yellow Tops are for accessory loaded vehicles. Vehicles with a shit load of accessory lighting, massive stereo systems etc. You'd want a yellow top if it's an offroad vehicle with excessive lighting or for show cars that are going to sit there with all of its gadgets and stereo equipment on. If you're building the car right, ideally you would have both a red top and a yellow top in the car.

Blue Tops are for marine applications (boats etc).

That's pretty much all they offer. So if you REALLY want an Optima, you should be using a red top in your basic car.

Our shop ended up with a bunch of free Optima batteries that we couldnt do anything with. It's a shame too, because i personally set up the sponsorship with those guys and spent a lot of time on it.

At the end of the day, they were't dependable and we ended up having to swap Interstates into all of our cars.

About two years ago we discovered an AMAZING battery. It's ultra compact, which is great for us since often times we have to relocate the batteries to the trunk, has the same CCA as the larger Interstates and Optimas. I'm not sure if you can pick it up locally or not, but it's made by Odyssey.

Since we've started using Odyssey batteries, we haven't looked back since. The only other battery we'll use is an Interstate if it's going into a basic car.

Excellent, thank you.

Pretty much all Interstate.

They're not listening to you......

Who knew there were only two battery manufacturers? :rolleyes:

The best car battery I ever had was made by Panasonic. OEM in my Acura and finally died after eight years.

Thanks for the info. Good to know.

$300 for an Odyssey for my car! :eek: Think I'll stick with the Kirkland for now.

You should email the NSA and ask them which batteries are complained about the most in most Americans emails and cell phone calls, and which ones get the most compliments.

Then you can make an informed decision.

Ummm, okay...

There are only 3, I believe, manufacturers that make car batteries and only 2 are large companies that make the majority of them.

Johnson Controls is the one that people consider to be the premier manufacturer and they make the Interstate, DieHard, Duralast, and some of the Wal-mart Maxx batteries.

I just choose from those 4 depending on which has the best deal going on when I need to buy.

I prefer DieHard or Duralast since they offer the best warranties. Interstate only gives you 2 years free replacement instead of 3 and I think Wal-marts Maxx batteries only come with 3 year warranties while the other 3 come with 5 year.

Interstate, and any of their licensed dealer locations will give you credit for the time you didn't get use if it fails early. They have 72 month options.

You may need to by a battery with more cca, that may be why they are not lasting.

So do the others. Except Interstates pro-rate warranty kicks in 1 year sooner than the others but all of the warranties expire after 5 years. Unless there is a sale on for Interstate batteries they are generally more expensive than the exact same battery sold at Sears or Autozone that comes with a different sticker.

This, and it has been this way a long time. I usually buy Autozone, and they have taken pretty good care of me. Oh, and taking care of the battery is the most important step in getting long life. If the car sits a while, plug a battery tender into it. I just had a cheap Autozone battery last 10 years in the Barracuda.

This is the battery I have in my car and it's been extremely reliable. Pricey, but very reliable.

Have the Autozone battery I bought in 2002. Only concern is, if the car is resistant to an easy start, it only holds about an 8-10 try reserve. It's wearing down and clearly doesn't have the deep capacity, but unless I do something stupid like run out of gas, or happen to get some bad/dirty gasm it's still capable of reliable to maintain CCAs from the alternator replenishment for a reliable first/second/third turn start.

That's actually a really good idea. There's a whole lot of market research value in mining hundreds of millions of conversations.

Kinky.

Just got a battery from Sams Club. It had a 3 year warranty and I had it 2 years and 10 months. They gave me a brand new one and a new 3 year warranty for zero cost to me.

Odyssey is the best

I buy no-name batteries from a local shop that rebuilds them. The last one I bought from them for my Dakota was 4 1/2 years ago and it's still going strong.

AGM Battery

Why do you think you're cursed? Why do you only average three years in each of your cars until the battery craps out? Why are you looking for the longest lasting and most reliable battery made? Why dont you care about the cost? Why did you put a hyphen between longest and lasting?

Batteries suck.
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Interstate Megatron

None of them are any damn good.

always used diehards, the warranty is too good
I don't think their quality is what it once was, but in AZ I don't have the cold cranking problems

so I just keep getting a new battery every 2 or 3 years
I am currently using a battery from a 96 taurus inna 74 plymouth, because of warranty
it's held in with bungie cords, metal band plywood, and a disregard of physics

Yeah living out here I've found out heat kills batteries much quicker than cold. Never knew that.

My Jeep tends to eat batteries and heat soak is what does it.

I've always had Interstate batteries, but bought whatever the house brand is from Auto Zone last time because I was in a bind.

And yeah, Jeeps are rough on batteries. You're lucky to get three years on one with a Jeep.

You guys are silly, cars run off gasoline, not batteries.

Yep. My YJ was hard on them but my CJ is better. Don't know why.

My mechanic used to swear by Optima until he said they moved their manufacturing plants to Mexico a few years ago. He said they still are okay but not like they used to be when they were manufactured here. He had an old Jeep in his backyard that hadn't been started in over 5yrs and when he decided to move it, it started right up.:thumb:

entropy, more energy makes it accelerate its pace.