Battery Life - 7+ years old and going strong

[Big Sky]

Curious how folks are doing with maintaining batteries. We use four 6-volt batteries in series-parallel for a 12-volt system. These are Costco golf cart batteries. I purchased them in April 2010. I maintain them every 4-6 months by topping off each cell with distilled water. I check them with a specific gravity bulb type tester. Today they registered as high as the meter allows. I'm very pleased these are going into their 8th year of service. I attribute the long life to the maintenance and the Magnum Energy Charger/Inverter I use. I keep the trailer plugged into shore power year round. It is a 3000 watt inverter to provide us with whole home 110 volt power in all outlets. Can run the microwave, use the electric coffee maker, TV and my wife's CPAP each night. When dry camping we use a 3000 watt Yamaha with 4000 watt boost to charge. If we run the generator for a few hours at each meal (breakfast/lunch/dinner) we have endless supply of 110 volt power. I love our set up. How is everyone else's luck with keeping batteries for years?

[Subaru297]

I'll have to get back to you in 4-5 years. So far our 6V Rolls Surrette batteries are doing great. Our solar panels and controller maintain them. So other than adding a tiny bit of water a couple times a year they are pretty maintenance free so far.

Only 3 years and counting though....... I do expect to get 7-8 years or more from them though.

Good to hear the Costco 6 volts are holding up well. Proper maintenance is key!

Cheers

[RoyBraddy]

Using the smart mode technology resulted in my three remaining GP24 12V Interstate batteries long life from 2009 to just last season when they started to drop in performance...

Inspected the setup every two to three weeks usually not finding anything wrong...

I started all of this when I lost the first 12V battery in just a few months of operation in 2008 using a single mode converter/charger unit. Then I replaced that with the smart mode charging unit and the remaining three batteries have just now started to fail... That's a good 7 or 8 years of operations with many many 50% to 90% charging cycles when camping off grid...

Roy ken

[Mustang65]

It is GREAT to hear the good battery stories. There are usually so many not so good battery stories here.

Unfortunately the RV industry dealerships do not incorporate a brief battery learning session into their initial PDI. There should be a RED WARNING TAG about their DEAD battery in 7 days if they do not disconnect the battery cable.

Wow, 7 years. I am on 5+ with my T-145 batteries and there is a slight decrease in power in the mornings (-0.1VDC)where there are no demands on the battery. Yes, old age even plays hell on batteries.

Don

[Jagiven]

That'd great. I have two 12V batteries that are 5 years old. Both still going strong. I too check the levels periodically.

The cheap group 24 stays on the htt, and is plugged in while at home. The other battery is a true deep cycle group 27, it lives on a block in the garage, trickle charged periodically.