Who really made my batteries?

[BrucePerens]

Many brands are licensed these days, and thus say nothing about the real manufacturer.

Duracell lead-acid batteries are made by East Penn Manufacturing, which also makes Deka. They also make a number of house brands.

[Padgett]

In this country, most auto batteries are made by either East Penn or Johnson Controls (e.g. Johnson makes Interstate batteries). Both are good. It is usually on the battery somewhere.

AGM, Deep Cycles, and Marine batteries are sometimes made by nitch producers like Trojan (very good). Not sure if Optima (also owned by Johnson) is worth the price any more.

[BrucePerens]

I'd feel better about Johnson Controls if they hadn't made such a mess of Optima.

I was looking at Rolls-Surette batteries today. They seem to be the only manufacturer that isn't afraid to specify how thick their plates are. They have some stationary PV batteries that are specified to go 7000 cycles.

[Padgett]

Rolls-Surette batteries - suggest waiting for the exchange rate to get better, like about 50c/$1.

[SCBillandJane]

I think I see an agreement that two 6 volt batteries is better than 2 12 volt. I was surprised to see at a local Costco that an Interstate 6 volt was about $90 but a Trojan T105 was 4 times the cost on Amazon. What am I missing?

[Padgett]

Saw 6 for $1200 which is more like it. If my livelihood depended on an electric golf cart (some do) or use daily, it would makes sense as they are the "Cadillac".

OTOH for occasional use that does not depend on the difference between 205AH and 225AH, then a pair of $85 batteries from Sam's is fine.

[BrucePerens]

The Trojan T-105 is $140 with core at my local golf cart store. Not a bad deal if you have old batteries to turn in. The Rolls equivalent over $100 more. Sometimes those higher costs include shipping.

[scrubjaysnest]

Originally Posted by SCBillandJane

I think I see an agreement that two 6 volt batteries is better than 2 12 volt. I was surprised to see at a local Costco that an Interstate 6 volt was about $90 but a Trojan T105 was 4 times the cost on Amazon. What am I missing?

Before getting the Interstate check the web site for charging requirements vs say the Trojan. It is much higher for the Interstate and very few charging systems can meet the Interstate requirements.

[BrucePerens]

The Interstate battery manual is just a statement of how to charge a battery gently and every battery would benefit from a charger programmed to those parameters. But ultimately it's a matter of the thickness of the positive plate, maybe theirs is thinner and this is how they get out of the warranty obligation.