Duracell, Costco or Interstate battery?

[Iraqvet05]

I tried my local Home Depot but they didn’t have deep cycle batteries. I wound up at Costco and bought a group 13 battery which was as close to a group 24 as they had.

[Slee44708]

I work with a variety of batteries on a regular basis and I have found the the most reliable and best bang for the buck is the Napa or Deca batteries. Deca makes Napa's batteries which are all made right here in the USA. I have litteraly had hundreds of Interstate batteries fail prematurely over the last year and half to the point that Napa's corporate headquarters sent out a letter to all Napa dealers stating that they are not to sell to interstate battery distributors or reps any type of napa batteries. Deca is one of the last battery manufactures that make all there batteries in the USA. Just my 2 cents.

[NHstuckinGA]

My Exide (OEM from Jayco) dual deep cell lasted 2 1/2 years and got very flaky. I researched and then replaced with a Duracell Ultra Premium AGM Group 24M Deep cycle Marine and RV.
The issue was the Exide was a Group 27 yet the Jayco Owners Manual (useless, useless, useless) said to use only a Group 24.
I checked with my favorite repair shop and they said 24 or 27 either was fine.
Camping World won't talk to me as the Exide was over one year old. The Duracell has a 30 month replacement, so we will see.

[Mustang65]

Originally Posted by Slee44708

…….Deca is one of the last battery manufactures that make all there batteries in the USA. Just my 2 cents.

USBattery is also made in the USA.

I was going to purchase USBattery back in 2012 when I went SOLAR, but decided at the last minute to go with (2) 6Volt Trojan T145, 260Ah batteries. They are still working hard after 6 years. Granted, their aging process is taking a toll on their available Ah's. I just recycled the original 2 Interstate 12volt batteries that I had on the TT and were used for only a few months, and spend the rest of their 6 years under my work bench on SOLAR charging. They were used for my electrical projects. Their voltage never dropped below 12.2VDC. The replacements for my 2 Trojan 6 volt batteries, will more than likely be USBattery batteries. Why you ask, I have talked to many USBattery owners and they feel the same about their batteries as I do about Trojan. As with Trojan and other major brands, USBattery has a large family of batteries to choose from.

We are always in pursuit of the perfect battery that meets all the needs of our Camping Lifestyle. One additional point I would like to make here is that I believe battery maintenance is the primary factor in a long battery life. NEVER allowing your battery(s) to drop below 12.2VDC, ALWAYS make sure you battery water level is FULL (1/8" below the filler tube neck), EQUALIZE deep cycle batteries to insure that the cells remain healthy, Make sure your cable connections are clean, protected and tight, and in my case I do all the above, but I believe that having 250 watts of SOLAR power, day in and day out, maintaining the proper voltages for me is a BIG factor to a long battery life. As I see it, the age of the battery will be the ultimate factor in bringing down my batteries. Just like in humans, we can take all the precautions, but we only have so many heart beats on this earth.

I suggest that you do not wait until you get to Costco, or Walmart or Interstate to try an figure out what battery you want. Don't be lazy, crank up GOOGLE and get to doing your battery homework. Make your decision at home, take your notes with you and buy what your homework said you should buy. It is not hard. You can find a lot of BATTERY information on our RVing with SOLAR Social Group. Get a beer, chair, sit down with your tablet and enjoy the reading.

If you decide to go with an expensive battery(s), do not do it unless you pick up a battery monitor that you can check how your batteries are doing on a daily basis, or you will be wasting your money.

If you only camp at CG's with shore-power, don't waste your money, just pick up an inexpensive Interstate battery, keep it well maintained, and you will get years of use out of it. (Unless you have a Residential fridge, then all bets are off).

I would say, if you are happy with the performance you got out of your batteries, then why change... but that is no guarantee that the next set will perform as well as your originals.

Results of my Interstate battery test, the batteries were 4 years old.
Don

My Registry

RVing with SOLAR

[jaycojay]

AcDelco makes a great deep cycle battery ..... might pay a bit more, but well worth it

[bleckb]

I had to swap a battery at Interstate due to my ignorance. In retrospect, it was probably fine, as their testing showed, but they upgraded me a level for only the difference in price after warrantying the original. About $20. Had to drive a bit to their warehouse location, but they were super about customer service. I like Costco, but I'm not sure it would have been that easy in terms of customer service. It may also be a quirk of my local Interstate folks, but the way they treated me well as a customer is all they need to keep my business (or lose it if it stinks).

[in the wind]

Everstart Maxx from Walmart makes a good RV battery. make sure you get the one with a 2 year warranty. I have a group 29DC, and its a great battery. It weighs a ton, the sign of a lot of lead plates.


https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/007...0&odnBg=FFFFFF

[ve7fet]

Originally Posted by CampNow

Speakiing of "resellers", East Penn, Johnson Controls, and Exide, make the vast majority of wet cell/flooded automotive batteries in the US. FWIW, most Interstate branded batteries are made by Exide and Johnson Controls. If you have a preference for East Penn, Johnson Control, and/or Exide batteries, that's that's a legitimate "brand" preference. If you have preference for Interstate, Wal-Mart, Sears, Costco, Autozone, etc. . . . all battery resellers . . . well, things really get mirky. Who knows who made what.

On the subject of Costco... their current GC2 batteries are branded Interstate 210AH. That might make it a PF-GC2-UTL... or a GC2-HCL-UT(L)... but it also may make it a Trojan T-605, based on the specs.

One never really knows...