Hello, Thanks for all of the advice and links. I never thought about pitting the auto stores against one another, I'll give it a try.
I started my engineering career working for Globe Union which was eventually purchased by Johnson Controls. Globe Union's batteries were great, but the specific line that they sold to Sears (Diehard) was even better. Sears had tighter specifications than Globe Union. Because the Johnson Control batteries are re-branded, I'm not sure how to find them. I wasn't aware that Duralast was one of the brands. I guess now I have some serious haggling to do. Thanks again, Mike ------------------------ Original Message ------------------------ Date: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 09:17:34 -0700 (PDT) From: jerry freedomev <[email protected]> To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [EVDL] Flooded Lead Acid Purchase Hi Bruce and All, I've found Deka/East Penn to be as good as Trojan at a lot lower price, under $100, I got 215amphrs ones for $80. Trojan seems to think theirs are gold and US Batts not much better. I wouldn't buy an Exide at all as terrible QC, products that die early plus they just declared bankruptcy from their bad business practices. Also Johnson Controls/JC seem to be real good though usually under a brand name like Duralast. Auto stores will serious bargain with you and I recently bought so 115amphr gp 29 true deep cycle JC, Duralast for only $80 each from Auto Zone for my EV Streamliner. List is about $190 as an example. Play one against the other until you get a good deal can save you $100's anywhere in the country. Speaking of the Streamliner I just got the front lower fairing done in a beautiful clear finish mahogany, putting in the new larger batteries and a manual contactor controller I built from scratch. Jerry Dycus ________________________________ From: Bruce EVangel Parmenter <[email protected]> To: Electric Vehicle Discussion List <[email protected]> Sent: Friday, July 19, 2013 11:19 AM Subject: Re: [EVDL] Flooded Lead Acid Purchase I have used Trojan T-125's and their USBattery equivalent US125's. My experience may be different than yours but I found our local SF Trojan dealer not interested in selling 22 T-125 batteries to me, let alone delaying the pickup of dead cores until I had swapped out the pack. The Trojan batteries cost more, lasted longer (energy and cycles), but my local dealer was awful. On the other hand, the SF Bay area USBattery rep, Jim Ramos had a better pack price, excellent customer service (he would come back at a later date to pick up the dead cores), and a long standing reputation as EV-friendly. In talking to other USBattery reps in different parts of the U.S., I found I was spoiled by the excellent service from Jim (not all battery reps are alike, Trojan or otherwise). So, contact each battery rep in your area, and see which has the best price and EV-friendly service. USBatteries are good batteries, but they are one step less performing than a Trojan. I suggest seeking Trojan, then USBattery, before considering other brands. With other brands, I have heard stories of inconsistent quality, weak posts, bad seals on cell covers (poor plastic molding), old-date batteries sold with newer ones (some dealers are used to selling one or two batteries and not familiar with selling larger quantity of batteries), etc. Using search terms of Phoenix, AZ T-125 returned different battery dealers near you: http://www.trojanbattery.com/tools/dealers.aspx?zip=85015&x=62&y=10 T-125 Trojan http://www.usbattery.com/usb_az_contacts.html US-125 USBattery http://localdirectory.azcentral.com/exide+corp.9.458115p.home.html GC-135 Exide http://goo.gl/maps/DJY4q Interstate batteries near Phoenix, AZ 2300 Interstate http://www.copperstatebattery.com/crown.php CR-235 Crown {brucedp.150m.com} On Thu, Jul 18, 2013, at 01:30 PM, Michael A. Radtke wrote: ... > Since I was not able to by my i-MiEV, I'm looking to purchase 17 > Trojan T-125's or equivalent for my ElectraVan. I'm in Phoenix, AZ. > Does anyone have a suggestion for sources to check? - -- http://www.fastmail.fm/- The professional email service _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.evdl.org/private.cgi/ev-evdl.org/attachments/20130719/e54f2f1c/attachment.htm> _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA) _______________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE: http://www.evdl.org/help/index.html#usub http://lists.evdl.org/listinfo.cgi/ev-evdl.org For EV drag racing discussion, please use NEDRA (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/NEDRA)
