How long does the Stock battery last ....

[robkay]

I just had to replace my OEM maintenance free battery. It lasted 4 years and 2 months from the date I bought the car new. There were some signs over the past few months that it might have been on its way out. I never had any issues, but my wife commented a couple times over the summer that the car seemed a little slower to start than normal. I should have thought to look into it but, frankly, I'm used to batteries lasting more than 4 years and since it hadn't shown me any signs of problems I basically ignored her...er, I mean it.

We got up to go to church one morning and the accessory lights would come on, but it just made a pulsating clicking like noise and would not start. Turned on the lights and they would quickly dim. The case of the battery was translucent with lines for Upper Level and Lower Level of the electrolyte. So, I put my trouble light up next to it and could see that the level was down about an inch below the Lower Level and it kind of looked like the upper half of the plates were exposed. I imagine that's a bad sign. Had I checked it out over the summer when my wife alerted me to a possible problem I might have been able to remove those plugs and topped it up and maybe gotten some more life out of it. Or, maybe it would have blown up and killed me, I don't know. (Or, maybe the wife had secretly taken the plugs out and removed some electrolyte so I would do just that. Hmmmmmm...)

I was going to get a Kirkland Signature for $60 at Costco, but they didn't have one. The manager told me that he had been having trouble keeping his battery stock up and couldn't venture a guess as to when he might have one in stock. Go figure.

Sams Club had a Energizer with the same specs, same warranty for $67 "installed." The thing is, I've noticed that Sam's changes sources and brands somewhat frequently and this concerns me a bit if I needed to have it replaced under the 36 mo free exchange warranty. Also, there is little info out there on Energizer, other than it's made by JCI. Johnson makes batteries sold under several brands, but the fact that they build them doesn't necessarily mean that every brand is built with the same quality components. Furthermore, Sam's is associated with Walmart and there are some pretty negative reports out there about Walmart's warranty service. Thus, I decided to forgo Sam's.

Ended up going with the Autozone Duralast Gold. It was $99 and the features/specs sound very similar to those of the AC Delco Professional. I think it might be a better battery than the Kirkland. There are Autozone's all over the place, so I think I can be confident of good warranty service. Also, the guys at Autozone were kind enough to run it over to my house (just a few miles away) because I only have 1 car and was stuck with a dead battery.

I did find that the battery is a tad taller than the OEM was, so I had to take some nylon wire ties and lash the rear hold down post together. The front post fits fine, no cobbling needed.

Oh--the Duralast is a model 35-DLG and this battery has (+) left, so it drops right in and you don't have to worry about your cabling. It mounts right up.