Walmart Battery Lifespan?

"It's not like buying one battery is a huge investment...It's a 24 month battery. It's 30 months old. If it isn't doing what you think it should do get a new one..."

For me, it's twenty percent of my monthly social security check.

It's the INSULT that batteries of 30-years ago were light-years more dependable and long lived than the same brand batteries today. The INSTANT a company shifts from private ownership to the public domain, the bean counters escape their cages and start running the show. What I saw when I autopsied that Maxx Enegizer Wal-Mart 120 dollar battery gagged me.

Porous "solid lead" strap connectors, 6-year old's playground mud pie plate pasting, badly aligned plates, Afghani grade workmanship on the envelope separator sealing, entire chunks of greened positive plate material in the sediment chambers. The plate paste was a freakin' joke. Uneven consistancy. I did not use a penetration durometer, but I am tempted to believe the paste batch was used far beyond it's max mix use life. This is a hustle grade of assembly with zero supervision or quality control. We don't need Chinese batteries, Johnson Controls would be impossible to underachieve. There. I've said it.

If I could find a RAMCAR hybrid MADE IN THE PHILIPPINES, I would choose it 100 to one over what I saw. Quality independent manufacturers (and there were some outstanding candidates in the Seattle area), would be a better bet, and not even in a malaria fever induced nightmare could I envision Trojan producing something as bad as what I saw.

There are far too many ways to make an inferior junk battery. Now WHY do you suppose the terms of warranty for batteries has changed......hmmmm....?

The Trojans are probably the best you will find for deep cycle rv use. They are also quite expensive.
I have had very good luck with AC Delco Voyager deep cycle batteries. I just had one that was 10 years old finally fail.
Deka/East Penn batteries are also very good.

I have a genuine "Battery Tender" that is a charger/maintainer. You can buy from motorcycle shops and Walmart is now carrying them in my neck of the woods.
I rotate mine around from 4-5 stored batteries every winter. I move them from 1 to another every week so every battery gets a maintenance charge every 5 weeks or so.

It's not like buying one battery is a huge investment...It's a 24 month battery. It's 30 months old. If it isn't doing what you think it should do get a new one...

B.O.

Temperature Temperature Temperature.

At 80F storage >6 months storage is enough to warrant a maintainer for an AGM

At 40F it is a waste of money. 6 months of storage at 40F is <4% discharge.

Remember this is for AGM or calcium calcium flooded (totally sealed)

NinerBikes wrote:

Yes, but with AGM batteries, you don't really put on a maintainer charger, since they lose charge much, much slower than flooded lead acid batteries.

True in a lot of cases it's not necessary but if the down time is LONG, like 6 months or there is parasitic draw to keep up with and you're too lazy to disconnect, then it is a good idea. It certainly won't hurt anything to connect a true automatic, smart, float charger.

mtnbbud wrote:
Thanks everyone. I'm new to RV'ing as of the fall of 2013. I didn't know you should avoid discharging your battery below 50% to maximize it's lifespan. I've learned a ton from all of you.

Will the Progressive Dynamics in my TT and the Schumacher charger/maintainer in my garage work with AGM baterries?

Yes, but with AGM batteries, you don't really put on a maintainer charger, since they lose charge much, much slower than flooded lead acid batteries.

Thanks everyone. I'm new to RV'ing as of the fall of 2013. I didn't know you should avoid discharging your battery below 50% to maximize it's lifespan. I've learned a ton from all of you.

Will the Progressive Dynamics in my TT and the Schumacher charger/maintainer in my garage work with AGM baterries?

Boy how many times do I have to write.......?

A car jar DEEP CYCLE battery would have about 230 CCA and 45 amp hours. And risk acid starvation.

I tried to make one, a flooded battery, fifteen designs, and all were failures. No one would buy a special group 24 or 27 battery with these specifications.

Some things are possible. A 6-cell flooded car jar true deep cycle isn't one of them.

I have 2 Walmart Group 29 batteries. One is 5 years old and the other is 4.5 years old. It appears they're getting weak but I have so much more capacity than I really need they're still good enough.

I'll probably replace with two Trojan 6V next year if the currency exchange rate improves.

The existing batteries were never intended for deep discharge. Even a 50% discharge is too deep for them.

Have you done an energy audit?