Quote:
Originally Posted by Surly73
...only as good as the rep of the co. who MAKE it, not sell it. There's only a small handfull of companies who actually make batteries, and everyone slaps their own sticker on them. "Autozone" might not even sell the same manufacturers batteries from year-to-year (or even location to location - seen it happen at Walmart) so reading good things about "Autozone" in search hits may be meaningless.
My current favourite is Deka/East Penn (the actual manufacturer). They have a line of OEM "Exact Fit" batteries for Euro applications which various sellers may rebrand. You can get standard flooded or AGM. I'll be putting an AGM in some time in the next couple of months before our winter weather arrives. Don't forget you need to re-code the car in addition to registering the battery if you are changing capacity (i.e. Amp-hour rating) or type (flooded vs. AGM) in addition to re-registering the battery.
http://www.dekabatteries.com/assets/base/0379.pdf
Use "where to buy" or "contact us" from http://www.dekabatteries.com/ and they will guide you.
JCI (Johnson Controls Inc.) has a good reputation and Interstate is a major seller of batteries made by JCI. The Specs were OK and it "wore out" gradually instead of waking up one day with a cell short unable to start the car, but I had at least two different interstate batteries leave acid in the battery area due to a combination of being overfilled from the factory and a poor cap design. |
You're not going back to the mfg. when you need a replacement. My point is, if you buy some 84 mo. battery with a free replacement for the first three years, and if fails in just under 2, do you feel glad it's a 3 yr. replacement, or do you acknowledge you got ripped off?
A BMW OEM battery lasts 6+ years, no matter what the specs are. Why? Because they don't want to replace it under the warranty, so they spec out one that lasts as long as the warranty if not more. Why would anyone go to autozone for a BMW? That's like saying, you don't need to drop $23 for a MANN or Mahle Knecht air filter, go to autozone, they can sell you one for $8.
