Batteries for TDCi

[bundybear75]

Originally Posted by cobrin

well well well, it failed to start today battery must have been low, it cranked too slow to even start. I've had a replacement here for two days on maintenance mode cause I've been doing to some work on the cars exterior, looking great I might add. A quick swap and it's cranking like a champ and starts up in two chugs so to speak.

The missus has neglected the battery and has been using the car with the engine off every day (phone calls over bt after shut down, music ect.) coupled with leaving the keys in the vehicle overnight (multiple times) boot not fully shut multiple times only to find out the following morning the car clicks and doesn't have enough charge to crank, sure it gets a charge up and all is good but the first time it went really low it's never been the same and there's only so much a monthly charge can do or save. Two or three days of nil use and it wouldn't start.

As I've been cleaning and protecting the car over the last two days it didn't go well today. So in went the battery. Oh yeah WTF! is going on with the cost of batteries these days?

The same replacement from the same place of purchase (and others mind you) is $309-330 greedy bastards...

Century Heavy Duty DIN75LMF 80Ah 730cca $254 from SuperCheap Auto bought 27-11-2016 [24MTH warranty]
It is 1151 days from the old battery.
Or 3 years, 1 month, 26 days.
Or 37 month, 26 days.

This is the shortest battery service life I've had in all my driving history but it's the missus that attributes to this shortened result so I'm not completely annoyed. It's made over it's warranty period which is a bit weak if you ask me. Any who I'm not buying a $300 battery, my wife found the replacement from the last place you'd think to buy a battery from. It's not a 80Ah battery she found a 95Ah 810CCA replacement but it were to high to fit in the battery box coming in @ 224mm height. The 80Ah battery also were ~190-205mm height and didn't want to chance it.

The winner with 305x175x175 was:
Exide Extreme DIN66MF 66Ah 650CCA $175 (wow!!!)
[36MTH extended warranty]

And from all places it was from Bunnings, all because several months ago I noticed the tool shop had a rack of them and I made mention to the missus how weird or that I didn't know they even sold car batteries at bunnings. She's laughing now as I type this, good on ya love...

so that's a nice savings to keep.

Taken today and looking really shiny:
image

Funny, I noticed batteries at my local Bunnings the other morning. I didn't stop to look at the prices as I assumed they would be stupid, but I will have another look. My kids paddock basher needs a new battery so this might be the go to.....