Battery sticker shock

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an RV or an interest in RVing!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
See posts with no answers
Tom

Tom

Administrator
Joined
Jan 13, 2005
Posts
51,904
The sealed battery in our Caribe RIB finally gave up, and I looked around for alternatives. This is a 12V battery about the size of a lawn and garden battery (7.5"L x 5"W x 6"H), but with different specs. It starts a 40hp outboard engine and runs a minimal amount of electronics (depth sounder, GPS chart plotter and VHF radio).

Our local Napa auto parts store had a similar one in their catalog, but would have to order it. Delivery time with these folks is usually pretty good, but I needed it right away.

A local Kragen auto parts store had a flooded wet cell for $40, but that wouldn't work because of accessibility issues making it tough to check and top off water.

The nearest West Marine store had them for something like $100.

I found one online for $65 plus shipping (29 lbs) across country.

I eventually visited our local marine parts store and found an identical sealed Exide battery for $79. I swallowed hard and bought it.

I'm not really complaining. The stated life on the original battery, made in China, was "3-5 years", and we've had it over 5 years.
 
Based on my experience with Exide batteries I wouldn't count on it lasting as long as the battery it replaced unfortunately.
 
Ron,

I'm not convinced that they aren't the same battery from the same source.

FWIW when talking with the owner of a local battery manufacturer a number of years ago, he explained that his company was previously a member of a battery trade group. All the members agreed that it didn't make sense for everyone to make all the various styles of batteries, so they agreed on who would make what. They then sold each others' batteries under their respective brand names. I've witnessed him taking a shipment of batteries from one of his "competitors" and putting his company label on them.

The EPA and CA regulations eventually forced the company to quit manufacturing batteries locally, and they continued in business for many years re-branding batteries from their prior competitors.
 
It's true that there are relatively few actual battery manufacturers and Exide is one of them. Sometimes an oddball size will only come from 1-2 sources, regardless of how many brand names there may be on the market. Everybody produces the more common sizes/types, though.

Exide and East Penn are two full line battery manufacturers that produce batteries for literally dozens of different brand names.
 
Batteries are no different than washing machines.......all of those different name brands are made by only a few people..........tools is another very good example.....did you know there are only 4 different manufacturers of hand tools in the United States......the biggest is the Danaher Tool group, they make Craftsman, Allen, Armstrong, Matco.....then there is Proto, Wright and Snap On.........all of these guys make different things and sell them back and forth to each other and change the names..........there are reallly onlly 2 manufactures of torque wrenches in this country.........Danaher Tool group and a company named CDI.  CDI is owned by Snap on.  Between the two, they make all of the torque wrench name brands you buy.  If you are in the market for a Torque wrench, buy a CDI, much less money than a Snap on but has the exact same internals as the Snap on.
 
There is a store, both on-line and brick-mortar called Batteries Plus or Batteries +

You might check them out next time... Some of their prices are decent.. Some are shocking.

For example I had to replace the main battery in this laptop. Their price for a Ray-O-Vac brand EXTENDED RUN battery (20% more capacity) was lower than the OEM price on the OEM battery (0% more run time)  Works great  Trust me I test it often :)

On the other hand I had to replace the gel-cel in my rechargable spot light.... The battery was less expensive at RS-Electronics  (Quite a bit less expensive)  than what B+ wanted.

Same battery

But it's worth letting your fingers do the walking through the old web pages
 
So true Dave. In one industry where I worked, we used to call this practice "private label".

This is even done in the automobile industry where, for example, a manufacturer needs to shortcut the cycle from design to manufacturing in order to bring a vehicle to market.
 
John,

As I said in my first post, I did check online, but shipping was going to be expensive and I didn't want to wait.

BTW Batteries Plus price on this item (or something close) is $105-$125 with shipping (they sell 3 different ones this size).

Why do I feel good about paying $79?
 
Well.. As I said, they have brick & mortar (I got my laptop battery at one of them) so that takes care of shipping

And as I said some prices are good, some are not... Looks like you checked 'em out and for you it's "not"

I"m batting 500 with them  one great price, and one "Glad I got it elsewhere"
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Latest posts

Members online

Total: 890 (members: 11, guests: 879)

Forum statistics

Threads
131,928
Posts
1,387,649
Members
137,676
Latest member
traxster
Back
Top Bottom