I've been shopping around for a battery for my Mustang and was a little disappointed with the ones I got from Advanced auto in my truck. I stopped in this place called Batteries Plus,what a nice guy the owner was and what GREAT choice of batteries they have. Their main brand is Duracell made by Penn I believe(I know it's not Johnson Controls) He gave me a great deal for opening an account and by the time I was done I walked away with a R40 series battery for 70 dollars with a 2 year replacement free. Give these guy a shot plus they have light bulbs of all kinds......winter is around the corner boys

 

Yeah, they have an AGM battery thats called the X2 that looks pretty nice, I'm thinking around the $200 range. Nice though, and I believe 4 or 5 year free replacement.

 

Penn batteries (East Penn batteries) were still manufactured here in the U.S. when I bought mine and is a good battery. NAPA has them under their house brand @ 125 each. 1030 CCA. Mom and pop store near me had them also @ 75.00 each exchange. Bought 2.

 

I'm a fan of Kirkland Batteries (Costco). Only once did I have to return a a pair of batteries and they replaced both with no questions asked. It turned out to be my alternator going south that was the culprit so I can actually say that I've never had any bad Kirkland batteries. Good prices, good product and good customer service and return policy. Works for me.

 

Unless things have changed NAPA batteries are re-badged Exide.

Josh

 

The source (last year) below says NAPA batteries are East Penn (Deka) batteries.

The 7 Best Car Batteries for Your Vehicle - CarsDirect

I have always heard that they were made by Exide also. Couldn't find any backup on it when I dug into it a year or so ago.

 

FWIW we used NAPA for all out battery needs servicing 170+ heavy equipment and 50+ trucks (25 6.0 trucks)

It was the Exide Rep that always thanked us and have us Broncos and Rockies tickets.

Josh

 

Paragraph two says they're made by East Penn and paragraph nine says Exide. You both win and the person writing the article is aparently confused.

 

It's good to hear that Coscto batteries are on par with Optima. They offer 1,000 CCA's @84 month pro rata warranty.

The downside to buying Coscto batteries is their 84 month warranty is only as good as your current membership status.

If you cancel your membership for whatever reason you have no claim for battery exchange. You can't just use your "brothers" card as a quick way around a non member replacement fix as they will need to look up your purchase data on your account for any warranty claim.

 

Definitely don't doubt you. It may be like Diehard batteries, depending on which ones (model, etc), they may be made by different companies.

LOL - I missed the paragraph 9 statement Mike - thanks for pointing that out!

The one thing I discovered for sure during the search to find out "who-made-what", the more I realized that there was a TON of conflicting info!

 

Interesting info -

This NAPA page has a link to the MSDS for their LEGEND series battery:
http://www.napaonline.com/Catalog/Ca...566_0398898236

MSDS says East Penn (Deka):
http://s7d9.scene7.com/is/content/Ge...86481pdf?$PDF$

 

Good find. I see that MSDS is dated 2011. My point of reference is about 2005-2009.

And it could easily be a West Coast versus East Coast with each division receiving different manufactured batteries based on shipping/availability.

I do see on Exide's Wikipedia page they closed their California battery plant in 2013.

Josh

Josh

 

My twin MAXX-65 (875 CCA) batteries from WalMart ($110 ea), have been powering my '03 6.0 since 2008.
Guess I won't be using the 3-year replacement warranty.

I just keep the terminals/cables clean and tight.

(I also have twin stock alternators, which probably doesn't make any difference)

 

Big Big fan of Walmart Maxx batteries.

Also having dual alternators means having a 140 amp upper 6G unit. Decent upgrade over the puny underpowered 110.

Josh

 

Most outlets, I'll use AutoZone as an example, have two or three differant grades of batterys. Each grade will be built to differant specs. and possibly a differant manf. I don't think Costco does this. They have one grade within a group size which may give a more consistant product.