Sad that Ford’s way of dealing with warranty costs is to just reduce the length of warranty, rather than improve the part. Pathetic really.

 

I'm running Odyssey Extremes in 2 vehicles: F350 and Jeep TJ. One thing to note is if you charge them with a battery charger, use one of the ones Odyssey recommends. I was using a Noco Genius for AGM batts but that is one charger they specifically did not like the charging algorithm of. I now own 2 CTEK chargers and strangely enough the one car I used the Noco on as a maintainer, the battery died in 3 years, so I think I may try the CTEK on that car too...

 

I had the Motorcraft battery in my 79 F150 die on me a couple of weeks ago. I got it used, a couple of months old, back in 2006. Yes, it lasted 15 years! It was a parts counter battery, not one installed on the assembly line. Made in Mexico. I guess I got a good one.

 

My 2018 Motorcraft has been trouble free so far. It's 4 years old right now. I'm getting ready for a cross country trip to visit family. I have read our Ford trucks are very sensitive to battery resistance and concerned it i buy another brand if all the internal computers are going to start acting up. Any comments are welcome.

 

Voltage is voltage, doesn't matter what sticker is on the outside of the battery. Of all of the posts here concerning batteries, I'd say that Motorcraft is the least reliable though. Getting 4 years out of yours is great, but it can and will fail with little notice. These trucks don't tolerate low voltage well.

The highest regarded batteries seam to be those made by East Penn, Deka (same company I think) or Northstar. You may do okay with a new Motorcraft vs one that was sitting in a truck for months before it got sold and went into service.

 

Internal resistance in a battery is a real thing, the hanging question is: with these new sophisticated (measuring in and out current) Smart systems, is that what kills one of our batterys early? I have benz that I believe has been under charging the battery, and even with me putting it on a trickle AGM charger, the battery lasted a little over 3 years...

There are folks way smarter than us, about our charging system and what a higher restive battery might do... Likely it will be crickets from them... On my benz, I'm tired of the: "it's performing as designed" crap, and am going to do some Torgue logs of what the hell the charging system is doing. Pulling into the garage, after a good long drive and reading 12.5 volts on a brand new MB AGM battery, is so, very, not right...

 

I was in the rural broadband business for about 15 years, and a bunch of our remote POPs (Point Of Presence) were solar charged "islands". We had no wires in and no wires out. These POPs were 100% solar charged, and required some bodacious batteries to keep running; especially during winter storms in the winter. I had to design each POP to run up to 10 days with no sun. That was a challenge. What I discovered was that the single biggest thing with lead acid batteries (we used exclusively AGM SLA (Absorbed Glass Mat Sealed Lead Acid) batteries) was paying attention to the SOC (State Of Charge). With lead acid batteries in general, going below 50% SOC will dramatically shorten their life. You can go a little lower with AGM, but not a whole heck of a lot; maybe about 60%. Once you've done that, the life of the battery has been severely compromised. They may not be "done", but their ability to soldier on in the face of adversity is seriously decreased. For all you folks in cold climates, your batteries have a much more difficult time. Out here where we live (central California, near the coast), we have a much easier time because freezing temps are not typical, or even frequent. We live at 2400' elevation, and we will see two or three freezing nights per year, and that is just barely freezing, like something between 25 and 32 degrees. IOW, pretty mild.

What this long winded explanation leads up to is that our 2015 F150 is still on the OEM battery after over 6 years now, It's not shown any signs of crapping out (yet). I attribute that primarily to our mild weather. The oil never gets very thick, and the strain on the battery is relatively light. That said, I think I will be looking for a new battery before very long.

 

We’ve been hearing for years now how battery tech is about to make quantum leaps. Yet to see it. It seem that todays batteries are no better or slightly worse then those of 20 years ago.

 

Yep. I think there's a huge amount of research going into batteries, but honestly, that's going to be more applicable to EV batteries than the starter batteries on trucks for a long long time.

 

It should go without saying that battery research is hard. Really hard. However, with the shear number of people working on it now, if improvements are possible, they may be coming in the next few years. I think replacing lead acid batteries one of the new lithium variants will probably happen pretty soon. The prices of LFP batteries are now becoming competitive with lead acid, and they would save both weight and space in an ICE vehicle.

 

I have a 2018 f150 and am on my second Motorcraft battery.I believe this one is on its way out.Can I replace the agm battery with a regular lead acid battery?

 

Perhaps you should consider an aftermarket AGM battery instead of a Motorcraft OEM battery.
There are plenty of other F150 owners, including myself who’ve gone this route.

I won’t mention other brands because everyone has their own opinion but when my OEM Motorcraft AGM battery died awhile back, I purchased a DieHard Platinum AGM battery from Auto Zone and all has been well plus, as an added bonus, it’s a more powerful battery than the OEM.

Good luck with whatever choice you make.

 

My 2018 Battery lasted 4 months short of 3 years. I ordered my truck so it didn't set on the lot at all. I have had a mixed bag with the OEM batteries. My 2007 lasted almost 5 years, the 2012 battery went over 30 months 2015 had the factory battery when I traded it in on the 2018.
TJ

 

GlueGuy, I was in a parts store the other day and seen they now carry Lithium battery's. Are these the best way to go in the future? Mine hasn't given any indication of trouble yet, but after reading this thread I'm guessing my stock batt. will be giving out soon. Just wondering. I'm so impressed with all knowledge on this forum. Thanks

 

I think Lithium batteries are not a direct replacement in most applications.