Car batteries: Walmart any good?

"Warren Weber" > wrote:

>Wal
>Mart is close by

yep that's EAXTLY why I bought a Walmart battery this
time... close by no mater where you are

"Warren Weber" > wrote:

>Replaced with a Wal Mart
>deep cycle Marine battery works great. End of rant.

you put a marine battery in your car?

Warren Weber wrote:
> > wrote in message
> ...
>
>>My battery in my Mazda died the other day.
>>
>>Strange, I've never had a car battery die in the
>>summer. Its always been the winter when low temps and
>>load is present.
>>
>>Anyway..... I bought a replacement battery from
>>Walmart cause it was an emergency (no time to shop
>>around).
>>
>>Are their batteries any good?
>>
>>What brand/model car battery IS good?
>
>
> Thats what I buy now. I get the one with a 3 year no cost replacement. Wal
> Mart is close by. Optima is crap. First one I bought lasted 18 months,
> replace from them pro rated and I had to pay $70 . Brought it home would not
> work or take a charge. Returned for another one (round trip 90 miles.) Also
> had bouht a Deep cycle one $160.00 for second battery in modified van for
> camping. These have no warranty. Lasted one year. Replaced with a Wal Mart
> deep cycle Marine battery works great. End of rant.
>
>

FWIW, I bought my optima FROM walmart. Go figure.
Use it in my race car. Haven't killed it yet, but it's only been one
season. It's currently in my truck.

But, they are 3x the price of a cheapo battery...

Ray

I have had a cheap WM battery in my classic mustang that sits more than it
drives going on 5 or 6 years now. it goes dead once or twice in the winter,
give it enough charge to start the car, drive it for 30 minutes and the
battery is back to life.

I have been concerned how long this battery will live for the last year or
two.

Scott
> wrote in message
...
> My battery in my Mazda died the other day.
>
> Strange, I've never had a car battery die in the
> summer. Its always been the winter when low temps and
> load is present.
>
> Anyway..... I bought a replacement battery from
> Walmart cause it was an emergency (no time to shop
> around).
>
> Are their batteries any good?
>
> What brand/model car battery IS good?

Mike Romain wrote:


>
> From my experience Optima are crap. They break just like any other
> battery, are expensive and have a very short warranty that is only
> honored at specialty shops.
>
> I get 'way' better service out of chain store batteries with a long
> warranty good at any store.

I've never had ANY battery last as long as the 4 Optimas I've had in 3
different cars over the last 10 years. I wouldn't have anything else
ever again. And they're especially good in rarely-driven cars because
they have such a low self-discharge rate and they don't sulfate as badly
as a regular battery, but they're fine in high-mileage daily use cars
too. I've never bothered with the deep-cycle "yellow top" or the
deep/cranking combo "blue top" Optimas, just the plain red-top starting
battery.

Specialty stores?!? You call Pep Boys a "specialty store?!?" You got a
different definition than I do!

wrote:

> "Proctologically Violated©®"
> > wrote:
>
>
>>It used to be that batteries died a slow death.
>>You could *hear* that it was time for a new battery by the cranking, and not
>>by just getting effing stranded.
>
>
> Glad you brought this point up
>
> I agree that al my batteries die VERY suddenly!!
>
> One day it was fine... but next day won't even turn the
> starter over
>
> What gives?

Most batteries used to fail when the plates would get "swiss cheesed" to
the point that not enough lead was left to make a good connection, or a
single cell would sulfate so badly that it wouldn't contribute its
nominal 2 volts to the total and you'd get a "10 volt" battery for a
while. Now, they have better plate separators, thinner plates, and it
tends to be a catastrophic failure of a plate interconnect that kills
the battery, and those are "all or nothing" failures.
>
> and why did it die in the summer?

Most batteries do- summer is far harder on them than winter, actually.

ray wrote:

> Warren Weber wrote:
>
>> > wrote in message
>> ...
>>
>>> My battery in my Mazda died the other day.
>>>
>>> Strange, I've never had a car battery die in the
>>> summer. Its always been the winter when low temps and
>>> load is present.
>>>
>>> Anyway..... I bought a replacement battery from
>>> Walmart cause it was an emergency (no time to shop
>>> around).
>>>
>>> Are their batteries any good?
>>>
>>> What brand/model car battery IS good?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thats what I buy now. I get the one with a 3 year no cost replacement.
>> Wal Mart is close by. Optima is crap. First one I bought lasted 18
>> months, replace from them pro rated and I had to pay $70 . Brought it
>> home would not work or take a charge. Returned for another one (round
>> trip 90 miles.) Also had bouht a Deep cycle one $160.00 for second
>> battery in modified van for camping. These have no warranty. Lasted
>> one year. Replaced with a Wal Mart deep cycle Marine battery works
>> great. End of rant.
>>
>
> FWIW, I bought my optima FROM walmart. Go figure.
> Use it in my race car. Haven't killed it yet, but it's only been one
> season. It's currently in my truck.
>
> But, they are 3x the price of a cheapo battery...
>
> Ray

In my experience, they also last at least twice as long (6 years for my
current Optima compared to 3 for most batteries in my cars), are far
more tolerant of the occasional deep discharge ("oops, left the dome
light on for 4 days" kind of thing), and are more toleratnt of heat and
vibration.

And when they DO poop out, they seem to fail slowly and with plenty of
warning, but I've only managed to wear 2 out so far.

I have tried Wal Mart's batteries in the past. The most I was able to
get out any of them was less than a year. Sure, they are pro rated but
it is a hassle to have to constantly get the old battery out, take it
in, go through the hassle of having someone check it out to make sure
it's dead,(you wouldn't believe how many people at Wal Mart do not know
how to check a battery.)then obtain a replacement and go through all the
paperwork. Bad enough some of the vehicles I had to take the batteries
out were very difficult and time consuming to do so.
A group of us have coined a new term fro Wal Mart's Everstart battery,
the "Neverstart" :lol:
I personally have switched to A C Delcos because of their known
longevity. I've had a number of GM vehicles that had the original Delco
battery in them still going strong 8 to 10+ years as well as many
associates I know have had similar experiences. . Their prices aren't
too bad either.


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> wrote in message
...
> My battery in my Mazda died the other day.
>
> Strange, I've never had a car battery die in the
> summer. Its always been the winter when low temps and
> load is present.
>
> Anyway..... I bought a replacement battery from
> Walmart cause it was an emergency (no time to shop
> around).
>
> Are their batteries any good?
>
> What brand/model car battery IS good?

I had thought to avoid this thread, but finally decided to hop in with my
experience.
I find no battery that is as good as we expected in past years.

WalMart batteries are, however, about as good as any, depending upon the
price and
quality level you choose. And the fact that WalMart exists over much of the
Americas
must be an advantage.

I get 3-5 years from a battery..ANY battery.. None of them are, IMO, enough
different to rate a strong kudo.

wrote:
>
> My battery in my Mazda died the other day.
>
> Strange, I've never had a car battery die in the
> summer. Its always been the winter when low temps and
> load is present.
>
> Anyway..... I bought a replacement battery from
> Walmart cause it was an emergency (no time to shop
> around).
>
> Are their batteries any good?
>
> What brand/model car battery IS good?

I always buy Wal-Mart batteries
They last the warranty period - almost to the month.
And Wal-Marts are everywhere.