Group 31's are awesome!!!

[NapaBavarian]

I hate to tell you but what you bought is called trash

Im not insulting you im joking around but all jokes aside wal-mart batteries are just cheap and they dont last long i have never been able to keep one much over a year,

The G-31's are awesome

This seems to be a hit or miss issue, I'm no fan of Walmart, but I purchased my Peugeot at a wrecking yard with a dirty old Walmart battery and drove it for 3+ years, drained it to nothing and charged it back up several times, lost my voltage regulator and boiled every last ounce of battery acid out of it with an unregulated alternator, refilled it with distilled water and drove it 2 more years, if it works it works, if not it don't...

 

[dyoung14]

Its a everstart maxx-65n I don't know if I would call it junk its started my truck w/ bad plugs below zero not plugged in. Definitely not a great battery as I just read some reviews where people have had them die after 6 months. I have had these for almost 2 years now. I really don't know what to compare them to I could be missing out on the group 31s and if they die I will look into that. I guess its not 1000 cca its 850 cca and 1000 ca. It appears they have a 3 year free replacement. I think after that they degrade the price somewhat and you have to pay the difference. I had a battery from Oreillys once that they did that after several years it still had a few dollars worth of warranty towards the next one. My dad had a wal-mart battery in his wood truck that is severely abused and wasn't even the right battery. We couldn't get it to start one day so narrowed it down to the battery. We took it in and tested it showed good and we was about to leave. Then I said try the side terminals thats where we have it hooked to so they did. It was bad on the side. They looked up by application the correct battery for his truck and gave it to him for free and it was a more expensive battery than what he brought in. They goofed I am sure but its been in his truck for several years since then. How much do the group 31s cost and wheres a good place to get them? TSC?

I bought mine from napa at 100 each with my discount, but the next ones i buy will be from tractor supply at 89 each much better price, also my 89(automatic truck) has walmart batteries so far so good, PO put them in couple months ago, when they die im going G-31's

 

[jhnlennon]

Wal-Mart batteries are made by johnson controls, the worlds biggest lead acid battery manufacturer. Brand name means nothing anymore, alot of house name batteries are probly made on the same line as the ever-starts. Major conglomorates own everything these days, you cant go by brand names anymore, just like everyone thinks redwings and carhartts are all still american made(they arent, only a small few are )

I have had worse luck with interstates than I have had with ever-starts, the only dif is I paid way more for the interstates

 

[Jbevs]

Farm and Fleet has the cheapest batteries I have seen. I think it was $85 for a g31. I can't speak for the longevity of them, but I would think they are quality and plan to get them when I get new batteries.

 

[dyoung14]

Wal-Mart batteries are made by johnson controls, the worlds biggest lead acid battery manufacturer. Brand name means nothing anymore, alot of house name batteries are probly made on the same line as the ever-starts. Major conglomorates own everything these days, you cant go by brand names anymore, just like everyone thinks redwings and carhartts are all still american made(they arent, only a small few are )

I have had worse luck with interstates than I have had with ever-starts, the only dif is I paid way more for the interstates

i never liked interstates

 

[MIDNIGHT RIDER]

Wal-Mart batteries are made by johnson controls, the worlds biggest lead acid battery manufacturer. Brand name means nothing anymore, alot of house name batteries are probly made on the same line as the ever-starts. Major conglomorates own everything these days, you cant go by brand names anymore, just like everyone thinks redwings and carhartts are all still american made(they arent, only a small few are )

I have had worse luck with interstates than I have had with ever-starts, the only dif is I paid way more for the interstates

What he says is just the way it is, sadly.


Also,

For most of my many years, our tire-shop that we still have and the filling station we ran for many years before sold batteries to the public.

I can honestly say that we never made a cent of real profit from battery sales; not one nickel; batteries are sold more as a convenience to customers than as a profit item.

Believe it or not, people LIE and abuse the warranties.

If we sold three batteries, you could count on two of those coming back once, and one of those two coming back twice; usually, nothing at all was wrong with any of them.

We had customers that owned fifteen vehicles and only one decent battery, swapping it from one junker to the next.

Starters, cables, alternators, key-switches, whatever, would be the real culprit, yet the customer always blamed the battery first and was not happy until we gave them another new one to take back home and abuse.

Were it up to me, we would have quit selling batteries back when I was just out of diapers; thank goodness, installing them in newer vehicles got so complicated that my father finally quit selling batteries.


All of that being said, if batteries were not warrantied at all, and the seller was not expected to install them, top of the line Group-31s would sell for less than thirty-bucks and a lot of the lesser car batteries would be less than ten-dollars.


For the last several years, even long before we quit handling them, I have been using "blems" with a 90-day warranty, Group-31s costing me about $38 apiece.

I have had as good service from the blems as I ever got from the full cost ones.

 

[oldmisterbill]

I've had the optima group 31's in the van for years now. Surprisingly enough they're the only aftermarket battery that I've found that fits in the van. They're skinnier than normal batteries and longer. They fit in the van's skinny battery tray. Mine were great for years, but nowadays I have a bad parasitic drain. They are basically dead all the time now and I always have to jump it if it sits for more than 2 days. I want to replace them and install some sort of large switch to disconnect them when van sits.

http://shop.optimabatteries.com/pro...umber=D31A/1737.0.1.1.54219.54056.0.0.0?pp=8&

You wouldn't be showing a reah hi charge rate all the tim would you. My voltage regulater has caused that same sympton.

 

[leftcoastjeff]

G31's cheap?

Got me 2 remaned group 31 stud tops for 50, total, short warrentee, Interstate

Don't know how long they will last, but the old (5+years of abuse)Interstates are on their last legs and the ground to the pass side was not connected well.

Time for the g31 mod.

LCjeff

 

[NapaBavarian]

Jeff-

Where did you go for that deal?

 

[RLDSL]

Wal-Mart batteries are made by johnson controls, the worlds biggest lead acid battery manufacturer. Brand name means nothing anymore, alot of house name batteries are probly made on the same line as the ever-starts. Major conglomorates own everything these days, you cant go by brand names anymore, just like everyone thinks redwings and carhartts are all still american made(they arent, only a small few are )

I have had worse luck with interstates than I have had with ever-starts, the only dif is I paid way more for the interstates

Of course, they build to customer spec., customer being walmart, so the innards that go into the batts they make for wally world are not going to be the exact same spec as ones they build for a higher quality demand customer.

 

[94turboidi]

I don't think your going to find anyone to gripe more than wal-mart customers that got ripped off on a battery. Personally I haven't found a place thats easier to return stuff to than wal-mart. I'm not saying all their stuff is top notch but you can find junk everywhere. I remember when optima's used to be all the rage and I wanted to get a set really bad but couldn't see spending that much. I agree there are probably alot of people that just get a bad battery sold to them but usually its something else in their electrical system such as starter, alternator, wires, etc. that has drug the system down. It just seems like a domino affect, you definitely want everything electrical top notch on our trucks. I need to replace my starter asap, possibly the gp controller but its working so far. My batterys and cables are pretty well top notch. I still have one of the old negative ford cables but the rest are 2/0 gauge.

 

[RLDSL]

The worst part about wally world batts is the false impression they give that you think you could get them replaced anywhere if they go bad, but the way they *test* the things, all their batts that they*test* show up as good unless they have a complete dead short across the plates. You can take one of their batts that tests good that theyu have just refused to replace across the street to a real parts store and have it properly tested and the thing will sho up as total junk, problem is ther test won't do you any good at wally world and you end up buying a new one out of pocket every time.
I used to have to deal with this on customer's cars all the time when they had wally world batts in them that went bad, I would try to get them covered but the things would always test out good at 2 wally worlds,but would test dead as a doornail at the parts store and I would give the customer the option of taking the thing around to more wally worlds and trying or just buying from the local parts store where they wouldn't get screwed, so this is an experience I have run into over a LOT of batteries.

The nice thing about running group 31s batts is you can find teh things at just about any truck stop, tractor supply etc around the country 7 days a week. The price on the things is low enough that you don't have to worry about playing the warranty game. I've never had one last less than 4 years anyway

 

[94turboidi]

The group 31s do sound like the ticket if my batteries go bad. I didn't know anything about them when I bought mine new. My dad just bought new batteries for his tractor and got the same as me but even if I new about the 31's I wouldn't have tried to talk him out of it because there really isn't any additional room on the tractor for a different size.

 

[jhnlennon]

The worst part about wally world batts is the false impression they give that you think you could get them replaced anywhere if they go bad, but the way they *test* the things, all their batts that they*test* show up as good unless they have a complete dead short across the plates.

Not sure whats up with your area's wal-marts but mine has the same exact load tester as the local oriellys and fleet farm

And as far as building to custermer spec, EVERYONE is price cutting, and the good old days of paying extra for a qaulity recognized name is over. The shop I worked at sold interstates and I saw so many batteries come back that wouldnt pass a load test that it was unrealAnd the price is like almost twice as much sometimes as a fleet farm or wal-mart battery?

Nowadays, my recommendation is buy whats cheapest, its what all these corporations are doing anyway.....

 

[u2slow]

I think a lot of off-the-shelf batteries are stale. The last Group 31 I bought was dry - and they filled it with acid for me upon purchase. Unbelievably, that was Canadian Tire.


Anyone tried mounting Group 31's behind their seat? (i.e. back of crewcab)