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-   -   Which is the Best Car Battery Brand? (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/technical-stuff/13371-best-car-battery-brand-64.html)

A case of my 2.5 year old Ignis AMT. The car was driven daily till last September 2020. After which I got transferred and it is mostly sitting idle. The battery is failing to hold charge for more than 3 weeks if not started in between. It happened twice. I instructed my son to start the car once in every 2 weeks but as he forgot to start it and tried after 3rd week the car failed to start. I got the battery charged from a local shop but it recurs. The battery is Exide.

Earlier my 7 year old Swift diesel with a 3 year old Amaron battery never failed to start even after one month.

Is it normal? Or the battery needs to be changed? Or keeping in mind the low usage of the car now shall I buy a battery charger and periodically charge the battery?

The exact same thing happened in my Toyota Innova’s case. It too had an Exide battery fitted in March 2020. I don’t think this is normal, and according to the answers I got when I asked this on Team-BHP, either it’s a component in your car which is heavily draining battery charge OR it is a faulty battery.

We got our Innova battery replaced two days ago with an Amaron.

Edit: I was suggested getting a charger too. With the current Covid situation, we would be keeping our cars parked for long so getting a charger might better than spending 100 bucks everytime to recharge the battery at a FNG.

After all, taking care of a car when parked is just as important as taking care of it when being driven.

I guess battery is definitely showing signs of ageing. And 3 weeks without starting in this weather with a 2.5 year old battery is likely to give starting trouble unlike a new battery. Am experiencing this with my City too whose battery is 3 years old. I also feel Amaron is better in terms of life.

Agree with you on the charger bit. Any idea which are good ones?

Our Honda City's Amaron battery gave way a day ago. Realised it was used for close to 6 years! Replaced it with the same Flo variant from Viva marketing, Andheri East. With exchange got it for Rs. 3600. Battery wale had it for around 3300 but couldn't wait and needed one urgently. Wanted to try Exide but chose to stick with Amaron. Been a continued good run even with our earlier car.

If you do short trips with the car, your battery runs down and starts to sulphate. The difference between life and death of a battery is only 1 volt. A fully charged battery is at 12,7V and a battery is discharged at 11,7V.

100%=12,7V
75%=12,4V
50%=12,2V
25%=12,0V
Discharged at 11,7V.

One should not let the battery drop below 12,2V. You need to charge with an external charger. Short trips are not enough to recharge a battery of low voltage. Frequent jump starts will kill your battery. A trickle charger is a good investment. Thes are quite cheap today

I have a Victron Energy 12V/15A battery charger. Made in India by the way. With you car batteries, a 5A charger should be more than enough. I chose this charger because I can charge my 100A Lithium leisure battery with it. You might be able to get a good discount if you do a group buy of say 20 or 50 chargers.

Your battery might show fully charged after a drive but that does not tell you the condition of your battery. You need to let it rest for 24 hours to get the actual charge or switch on your headlights for 3 minutes to get rid of surface charge.

I have a Varta Silver Dynamic 100A/CCA 850A battery in my car and I never let it drop below 50%. I connect a charger overnight to get up to 100%. After 24 hours my 4 year old battery shows only 84%. I have a Ctek bluetooth dongle connected to the battery and it is quite accurate. My battery tester shows the same 84%.

You will kill the best battery if you dont look after it. It is better to charge it often to keep the plates healthy. In the winter months I charge the battery about once a month or twice if I do only short trips like during the Covid winter days.

In 2019 I parked my car at the airport at -10 degrees. 5 weeks later I returned to -25 and the car started without any problems. The battery was then 2 years old.

It may be a good idea to check for parasitic discharge if your not so old car battery is not holding its charge well.

I have used Exide and found them to be of average quality. I shifted to Amaron a decade ago and found them to excellent.

Have faced multiple issues with Exide batteries over the years. Our recent cars since 2018 have Amaron batteries and haven't faced any issues thankfully. Even though the cars have been stationary for long periods of time over the past year due to lockdown etc, haven't faced a problem. We do make sure to start the car once a week atleast, just to be safe.

My previous car had an Amaron black battery. I had occasional electrical / battery issues (old car and battery, so no criticism of Amaron here) and Exide's fantastic, free "bat mobile" service had bailed me out, arriving at doorstep for a check & jump charge, despite my having a competitor's battery. I was super impressed with their service. I don't see any other brand giving such assistance even today.

So when my 2011 Etios' Tata Green battery started giving up in mid 2015, I promptly got an Exide "Mileage" battery (via battery-bhai.com). Gave me six trouble free years, before starting to falter just last month, when I had to push start the car twice. Battery wasn't retaining enough charge between uses, despite the floating indicator being green.

Given my usage pattern, esp during last 2 years of covid, with car being used maybe once or twice a month, often for short trips (i.e. highly battery-unfriendly), I was happy enough with the life. That + the goodwill created by the Exide Batmobile, led me to replace it with another Exide Mileage battery just last week.

While Amaron pioneered modern lead-acid batteries in India, Exide has since caught-up, at least in 4-wheeler batteries. Their top-range (Mileage, Matrix) matches up to equivalent Amaron batteries in my experience.

I have used both Exide and Amaron. Both worked without giving any issues. But Amaron batteries lasted longer compared to Exide.

Has anyone tried out batterybhai.com, seeing better prices here, or is it better to just stick with batterywale for an Amaron?

Couple of years back, I replaced my battery with batterybhai for Amaron in Hyderabad. They were cheapest option, and they came within 4 hours to my location and replaced the battery free of cost and took back the old battery. Showed the battery manufacturing date, gave me the warranty card and left. Took 30 mins for everything. No issues so far

A week back I purchased AmaronFlo from Amaron PitStop and asked him how come batterybhai/batterywale offer such low prices for Amaron batteries. Amaron PitStop told me that these online portals purchase Amaron batteries from A'PitStop and the PitStop dealer would not sell at absurdly low prices to these online retailers.
I got my AmaronFlo 42B20L for Rs.3900/- after exchanging my old battery. The online price quoted by batterywale/batterybhai was Rs.4000/- for the same battery in my area after discount for old battery.
So it's not that online purchases are the cheapest, sometimes a physical visit to the dealer benefits us.

Similarly, last week I purchased Bridgestone Turanza T001 tyres for my car @ Rs.7700/tyre whereas the online portal 'tyreplex' was quoting Rs.8300/tyre for the same tyres that I got for Rs.7700/- at the authorized dealer's shop.
https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/tyre-...ufacturer.html

Amaron website itself is directing us to batterywale, so assumed they are their official partner. However if a PitStop guy offers similar price, I would prefer one I may get a look before buying.

Had to finally change the battery of my Corolla Altis. The Amaron one served me well for almost 7 years. Wanted the replacement to be Amaron as well, but the local FNG had Exide in stock, so got him to install that. I was leaving for Goa in a few hours, so didn't have much time on hand. Hope this serves me well.