It is a toad battery. It is 3 years old. Babied. Never once EVER cycled. Not stored, always in service. Charging voltage MoPar computer regulator. I have NEVER had to water this battery.AND IT HAS FAILED.A hundred eleven dollars.When I get home in goes a group 34 LTH Mexican battery.What is going on? Is the USA regressing to third-world quality of its products? The battery before this lasted ELEVEN YEARS. A Sears Die Hard. Both are Johnson Controls products.Regulated charging voltage is monitored to the second decimal place. Nine milliamps quiescent system draw.Mex is not a happy camper.

Every five years I have to replace the batteries in the Expeditions even though they are driven regularly and kept charged up. My 04 f150 has it's original battery and even though it may sit for months unused, will start the truck in -20F temps. Go figure.

darsben wrote:MEXICOWANDERER wrote:It is a toad battery. It is 3 years old. Babied. Never once EVER cycled. Not stored, always in service. Charging voltage MoPar computer regulator. I have NEVER had to water this battery.AND IT HAS FAILED.A hundred eleven dollars.When I get home in goes a group 34 LTH Mexican battery.What is going on? Is the USA regressing to third-world quality of its products? The battery before this lasted ELEVEN YEARS. A Sears Die Hard. Both are Johnson Controls products.Regulated charging voltage is monitored to the second decimal place. Nine milliamps quiescent system draw.Mex is not a happy camper.You bought a WALMART BATTERY probably made in China on the same assembly line that will make the Mexican battery. If not then the battery was speced out to the minimum quality necessary to sell. Most people buy a battery solely on price and in this category price is really an indication of qualityWalmart has a reputation of bringing mediocre products to the American/Canadian public at a LOW price, that is their niche and in some categories that is okay. So it comes as no surprise to me.

Is there no warranty? Yes you are probably better off with a local battery supplier. And yes sometimes these low cost batteries only last three years. My original truck battery lasted just long enough to be out of OEM warranty. Sam's Club battery lasted just four years but I had dropped my membership and bought a Costco battery that failed within the free replacement period. So I finally got an adjustment.And then there are other stories where the OEM battery lasted 12 years.I wonder if anyone still has an old K-Mart battery from the mid '70s that came with lifetime warranty. Dad got two free replacements before the car was stolen.

Hot weather is harder on a battery then cold. Seems like all batterys here in Florida need to be replaced more often.

I posted here a year ago... my interstate starting batt lasted 11 months,.....and for no reason,....big deal ! Go buy Mexican, that's what you should have bought anyway. Then go do your snibblin in Mexico

Grumble Gripe Snivel Wal-Mart Maxx Battery | Good Sam Community

joshuajim
Explorer II
Oct 13, 2014
MEXICOWANDERER wrote:
Where is the Delco USA plant located? I can't seem to find it?

I didn't say they made their batteries in the US. Most are made in Mexico due to environmental reasons, sorry.
MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Oct 13, 2014
Where is the Delco USA plant located? I can't seem to find it?
joshuajim
Explorer II
Oct 13, 2014
There are 3 major battery manufacturers - Delco, Exide, and Johnson Controls. They make 90% of all batteries sold in the US. The big difference is that Wally World tells them what price point they have to meet and that means as cheap as possible.
jandjbaums
Explorer
Oct 13, 2014
Well the EPA is (done pushing) battery manufacturers out of the US because of the BAD lead and acid that causes cancer to people of the US. So lets poison the rest of the world and we can wash our hands of it. I think thats what happened to exide and their problems. I worked for exide back in the 80's. We did that all the time(rebadging). We took all batteries for the prev. dealer and warranty the old batterys.
MEXICOWANDERER
Explorer
Oct 13, 2014
To those fine kind folks who delighted in criticizing my "choice" bite off a chunk of this and chew it...

When the battery BEFORE died. I was in a town of less than a thousand. The following should be easy to understand: THERE WERE NO GROUP 34 BATTERIES TO BE FOUND. 24's, 27's, and 65's only. And no, they wouldn't have fit, not even close. "Does Not Fit" means close the hood and see an orange glow.

So an American brought one down. One thousand one hundred seven miles. Or I could have ridden a second class bus two hundred miles (9-1/2 hours) and gone to the city to purchase a Mexican battery. Now which one would you have chosen?

Looks like RJ might have gone for the bus...oh wait, that means getting a Mexican battery. Oh wait again, Johnson Controls has been purchasing half their batteries from LTH the last year and a half. Same as Oxide. RJ watch where you step these days.
westend
Explorer
Oct 12, 2014
If you haven't figured out what is going on in the US and manufacturing and Foreign/Global Investors/Hedge Funds and so on time to thing about it.
I'm sure global economics is relevant on some levels but know that Walmart sets pricing, delivery schedule, and other contract specifics from vendors. If you want to sell through Walmart, there are terms to consider. If Walmart cancels their agreement, the vendor may be left holding A LOT of inventory. This is why we are seeing retail rebadging more than previously, it is a better situation for the Mfg. than risking their product and it's quality identity by putting a good battery on a store shelf. A snake eating it's tail.

FWIW, my Motorcraft 12V FLA original battery lasted 10 yrs, one month and it was not babied. I replaced it with the same.
down_home
Explorer II
Oct 12, 2014
Johnson Controls came along when they figured they could make cheaper spec batteries at a larger margin but still slightly cheaper price.
I'm sorry I don't have the story to put a link to. It was several years ago.
Still batteries seem to lat a while. We've had to replace several Wal Mat batteries in a short time. Batteries Plus Exide, lower spec, under other names as well. had the Manager tell me they all leaked acid from the positive post. It was a no maintenance battery. Best service I have had was deep cycle Trojans in Mh. Seven years. I can remember buying Die Hards, from Sears that lasted seven eight years. Same with Delco. Both are gone. If around it is just a label.
If you haven't figured out what is going on in the US and manufacturing and Foreign/Global Investors/Hedge Funds and so on time to thing about it.
dbbls
Explorer
Oct 12, 2014
I had a NAPA battery in my boat and it lasted 10 years. I bought another just like it. It lasted 1 year, so the average is 5.5 years.
landyacht318
Explorer
Oct 12, 2014
Maximum profit = Cut all corners.

Buyer still needs to have confidence in product.
so
Invest in more marketing. and run it past the lawyers, can we get away with it?

I once went on a tirade here against a shorted cell wally world battery which failed at 11 months, and all the wally world lovers came out of the woodwork to slam me.

Stop calling yourself frugal you cheap .......
:)

Now when one seeks out quality, and pays extra for it, then finds it is junk, then the sniveling is justified.
azrving
Explorer
Oct 12, 2014
I think this is one of those darn deja vu moments or Murphy is knocking at the door.......we all have these moments.......
Mexicowanderer
"Posted: 03/13/14 01:26pm Link | Quote | Print | Notify Moderator
Better yet, don't deal with the manufacturer again. Like other troublesome group sizes like 65 and 34/78 a 31 is a barometer of how "good" a manufacturer is at their craft.

I must ask, was a thirty for forty dollar "savings" worth what you put up with this battery? That is the real question. Dollars per kWh transacted. All other consumer measurements are irrelevant."