Battery ratings...consumers reports Nov/12

[76zimmer]

Note that this is Nov/12
Note that all batteries within a brand do not rate the same...
Consumers reports testing rates them differently by size and type within each brand.

looks like it depends on your needs and size battery you can run as to which brand is best...at least by their testing methods.

Click on pics for bigger images

 

[Blue85]

This is very interesting. The Walmart and Costco batteries come up as best buys while Interstate is at the bottom in many categories. I wish they would have listed the manufacturers in the table because 75% of the batteries in their list are Deka or Johnson Controls. I also wonder what their sample sizes were because with enough samples you would think 20 different-stickered Dekas would come out about the same.

 

[jekquistk5]

Interesting, but the people that fill these out are not the same people that wrench on cars. These are the people that believe what the parts store guy tells them.


That being said I have cheapo walmart batteries in my tow rig that are going strong, and the expensive optima that is a pile of crap. Both purchased at the same time.

 

[Babaganoosh]

I have had very good luck with the Autozone yellow batteries. With the rebuild of the truck I will be getting a AGM version.

 

[Blue85]

Is there more to the article? They have condensed all the real results into icons. It would be much better to show the numbers and explain how they measured "life", CCA, etc. Again, it's also meaningless without a good sample size (let's say 5 of each battery, minimum). I can see measuring the CCA on new batteries (even without buying them), but who is rating life and how is it measured? Are consumers reporting back how long a battery lasted them or do the writers have access to validation equipment that does accelerated life testing on the batteries? Consumer information is "real world" but you would need tons of samples to weed out people leaving their lights on all night, etc. Without this information the results (and article) are meaningless.