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Intersate Batteries

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I need to buy new batteries for my Duramax.
Are interstate still good or are they junk now?

Let me know...I need to get new ones right away! :popcorn:
 
Would like to know myself. I've always been a fan. They have been good for me and I've bought and used several.
 
It's been a while since I've needed to buy a battery, but the interstates I've had have been awesome.

I will buy more.
 
I have interstates in my Dodge(x2), K5 and my wife's Jeep. These batteries are a mix of 2yrs old or less. The trucks are doing great but the Jeep battery died after 4 months. It was warrantied and has been trouble free since.

Just my experience.
 
I'm not a fan of interstate anymore. I bought the megatrons for my dmax four years ago and am looking at replacing them. Stockers lasted five years.
I'm thinking about Ac delco myself from the gm dealership.

I may? Get interstate megatron 2 now since they have a 800+cca rating.
 
I just bought Interstates for my Duramax a few months ago and couldn't be happier. I was gonna get red top Optima's but the Interstates have more CCA plus, I didn't have good luck with the last one I had nor has a few other people I know.
 
Sounds to me like pretty much all batteries are a crapshoot anymore, like most all of our automotive parts.

Best you can do (I think) is find one that has the capacity and features you need, and hope it holds up.
 
I have interstates in my dmax but idk how old they are and I haven't had the truck a long time.
 
I have Interstates in my CUCV. They are four years old. I suspected they were getting weak - slower cranking and not firing now that it's getting colder - someone surmised that there isn't enough voltage to hold the IP relay open. All glow plugs are new a month ago. I took them in to Interstate for load testing. They are 950 CCA batteries and they both tested at 1200 CCA. He said they were great.

I'm starting to suspect this test though. Now that it's cold it won't start without a jump. Going to take them somewhere else for another load test. I find it suspect that they would load test that high. Maybe he didn't have the tester set right? It was a big honking tester with a rotary dial to put a load on it. I would think that the counter guy at Interstate Battery would know how to load test a battery, though. It's kind of what they do.
 
My truck lives a fairly easy starting life...it lives in a heated garage.

The first set of batteries "stock Delco" Lasted 7 years,the ones I got now are cheap Battery Direct ones, they have been in the truck for 5 years.

They gave me trouble last weekend when the truck sat outside over night.

Went to start it and it just went click click. :doah: Got it going finally, drove it home and load tested the batteries. One is good the other is weak.

I don`t trust them and we need to do some day trips to Edmonton. The weather when we are going is forecasted to be cold,I can`t be sitting in a busy parking lot with a dead truck.

I think I`ll get the Intestates,we used to buy them for our tractors and had good luck. Just wanted to know if they where still a good choice.

Thanks for the input guys. I `ll give them a shot.
 
Best batteries I've run lately are the stock AC Delco stuff. My 03 Tahoe still has the factory original batteries in it and it starts at -30 without any hesistation.
 
I have no problems with Interstate. Good warranty and network if its needed. But as I get money saved up, and batteries wear out, I'm replacing all mine with these.

http://www.odysseybattery.com/

They are not cheap by any means. But if you take basic care of them, they seem to last forever.
I got real tired of replacing battery boxes in my truck.
Despite acid neutralizing mats, and frequently cleaning, my driving style caused corrosion with regular batteries.

These batteries do not leak. At all. Plus they actually do what the Optimas used to do, and do it better than they ever did.

The only way to kill one of these things, short of a .30-06 bullet......Not me, a friend. Shot his own truck.
Got the deer though, swore it was worth it......
Anyway, never let one discharge all the way. If you run it down it may not recover if you let it sit under a load while dead for a long time.

Overcharging would do it too, but the same could be said of any battery.

Like I say, the price is not for the faint of heart, but you get what you pay for......
 
Interstate used to have a great reputation,but I know two guys who bought new Interstate batteries just this spring for their plow trucks and both have had one go completely dead and fail to take a charge,and the place they bought them at tried telling them both the batteries load tested "good" and it was their dual battery setup that drained one down because it wasn't wired up correctly..

They finally got them to replace them "(pro-rated though,and had to pay 35 bucks to get another new one!)..so far they are working OK,but one guy with a gas engine and an aftermarket dual battery setup I'd never seen the likes of before,that had no "isolator",just a starter solenoid type thing and only a 12 gauge "charge" wire going to the auxillary battery,decided to add a 4 gauge jumper to the other battery's positive terminal...I dont see how that 12 ga, wire could handle the current to recharge the battery,and it appeared bubbly and crisp,like it also tried supplying current to the starter...so maybe it was not the battery at fault in his truck?..

My friend tells me he no longer likes Interstates either,after swearing by them for years,he's seen more than a few die young lately..crap shoot is the correct term when it comes to buying many new things nowadays..

I have had very good luck with Duralast batteries..some say Dekka makes good ones,but I dont care much for them,never had a good one of those--or Exide's either.."Gaurdian" batteries sold here made in RI for local Benny's stores are notorious for being crap,and are also priced insanely high..when I go to the town dump or the scrapyards,and look at the battery recycling bin,I take note of how many of a certain brand are piled up there--I see tons of "Ever-Start" ones from Walmart,the "Gaurdian" brand ones,and a lot of Exides and other "no name" ones with plain black cases..some are not that old either..

When I worked at the junkyard I never had to buy a battery very often--so many people scrapped good ones from cars with charging problems we didn't have too--or ones from wrecks that had been "trapped" in the compartment by crumpled sheet metal but were undamaged were often good too..its amazing how many cars came in to be junked and the scrapper left a battery less than a year old in them..you dont see that often now that they cost over 100 bucks though..
 
Like Dorian said earlier I'm starting to believe batteries are a crap shoot anymore. So now I just buy batteries from a place that doesn't hassle me with swapping them out.

Between my dodge, k10 and my family's vehicles we have just about everything from autozone batteries to sears die hard to optima red tops.

I have to say the "upper" end autozone batteries have treated us well over the years and on the rare occasion one needs to be swapped out there's one on every corner and they never hassle us. That's worth something in my book.
 
Agreeing with the crap shoot as well, but I will also add, that from living in Phoenix,Arizona for the past 25 years, and worked at a few different auto parts stores from time to time, the normal scene for batteries was about 3 years in the desert heat. It's usually when the summer just finishes up and you get a few colder than normal nights, then you go out to start the vehicle and nothing, happens just that fast, seemingly overnight.

That's all you would get out of them normally. Then I hear of people out in SoCal and the midwest running batteries for 7 years or more. It basically became apparent that it also depends on the climate your battery lives in as well as it's daily use that determines if life cycle.

Like a lot of things, it seems there is a happy medium within a certain temp range they "like" to keep things running for a long time.

We just replaced the battery in the Avalanche under warranty through Autozone a year before we moved up here to Washington. It isn't their highest working battery, but it's not their cheapest either. I guess I'll see how long it lasts, because even Autozone batteries would crap out in about a 3 year time frame.

During those times at those parts stores, there were a lot of Interstate and AC Delco batteries that came in though, more than I would prefer to see, I dunno, maybe because there are so many out there possibly.

Just bought a mid-grade one from Napa (uncle worked there) a few years ago for my mothers truck, almost 3 years so far in north-east Indiana and it's still going good.
 
4xcrazy said:
Just bought a mid-grade one from Napa (uncle worked there) a few years ago for my mothers truck, almost 3 years so far in north-east Indiana and it's still going good.
Click to expand...

I've been buying Napa batteries for awhile now. Usually try to catch one that was bought then returned. They pull the lable.off and sell it for $25. Well worth the gamble. Have one going on 4 years old now.

I've also had good luck with Deka brand batteries.
 
FWIW my current battery is whatever Wal-Mart sells (Maxx Start?). Cheaper than anything else local I could get, had good reviews, closer to my house, and Wal-Mart's are just about everywhere. I've not yet had a problem with it.

I also wonder how many battery problems are "self inflicted" due to improper repair, other components, etc.? Last truck battery was probably ~7 years old when it died, new one is about 3 years old. OEM Hyundai battery in the car lasted 9 years. I think 9-10 years is far beyond normal anymore, 7 years being average for OEM battery life under good conditions.

Truck battery is by all means abused. I try and keep it on a battery maintainer as it sits for weeks/months at a time, but I don't always get to hooking it up as I should. I think the car sat for a total of about 24 months without being driven, about 4 months at a time.
 
Well I went ahead and got Interstates. 130.00 a piece.
Same price as Delcos the same size,but the warranty is better and they were closer to me.

Hope they work good.

Lots of good feed back in this thread. Thanks to everyone for their 2 cents. :thumb:

 
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