Forum Discussion

two_travelers's avatar
May 07, 2020

Coach battery replacement

Looking to replace the coach batteries. Do not do enough boondocking to justify AGM or lithium. Regular lead acid is fine. Suggestions on which brand seems the best appreciated. Might as well do the chassis battery as well. Gasser with Ford V-10. Suggestions?
  • For the chassis battery I would go with Walmart. If it fails Walmart stores are everywhere.
  • wa8yxm's avatar
    wa8yxm
    Explorer III
    I am not going to suggest a brand.. I will say mine are DEKA G-20's (GC-2 class 6 volt by 230 amp hours make one 12 volt 230 amp hour battery when put in series and then we start paralleling) I had Interstates in the past.. Why did I switch.. What the store carried.. Both are good. Trojan's have a very good rep as well..

    Before you do anythign get either two SMALL cans of spray paint (Hobby stores have small cans) or nail polish .. one red and one black.

    Now the wires that go from a battery to who knows where (not to another battery) Of the battery terminal is POSITIVE spray or paint 'em red

    If Negative black>

    Let dry
    Take pictures clearly showing hookup

    Note 2: Traditionally red is positive in automotive and electronics and black negative but in the wonderful wacky world of RV's. "Tradition" is a word in the dictionary.. For the house is wired by ELECTRICIANS and they use a different color code. Thus paint first. disconnect a day later to let paint dry

    And if more than one wire (other than battery to battery jumpers) on a terminal use a twist tie, zip lock or other means to join them so one does not get lost

    Start by disconnecting the NEGATIVE than any jumpers lastly the POSITIVE and insulate those (even if all you do is wrap a shop cloth around 'em) just to be safe.. Reconenct in reverse order.
  • Sam's Club Dural Cells in my coach. House has a pair of GC2's that will keep the 10 cu ft residential fridge going all night while the V10 starts easily on a group 65 size battery.
  • I switched to AGM when my 8 year old Interstate 6 Volt batteries died. If i didn't want more capacity and needing to relocate the battery bank inside the MH, I would have definitely went back to the Interstates. I never had to add water in the first 7 years of use and only started to having to add water the last few months of their life.
  • Got mine at AutoWise, biggest deep cycle they had. They brought them out and installed them for me, no charge.
  • Well, I went the AGM route for the chassis battery, and I have found it to be robust going weeks without recharge. I did replace old group 31 lead-acid batteries with group 29 from O'Reilly's and have found them to work well. HTH