I found my next battery !

[MaverickDragon]

Why an AGM over a Lead Acid battery ?

An AGM battery actually is a lead acid battery.
Its electrolyte is in a gel form contained in an Absorbed Glass Mat, thus the (AGM) moniker. .
That differentiates it from the more frequently encountered flooded lead acid (FLA) battery you were likely referring to.
I agree they are a better choice for the reasons you noted, but AGMs also don't need to have water added and they don't cause terminal corrosion and are not prone to acid leakage like the FLAs.

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[Cherokee]

An AGM battery actually is a lead acid battery.
Its electrolyte is in a gel form contained in an Absorbed Glass Mat, thus the (AGM) moniker. .
That differentiates it from the more frequently encountered flooded lead acid (FLA) battery you were likely referring to.
I agree they are a better choice for the reasons you noted, but AGMs also don't need to have water added and they don't cause terminal corrosion and are not prone to acid leakage like the FLAs.

Yeah I saw that in the third paragraph, I copied only the second one.
AGM’s are IMO worth the extra cost.
No outgassing like the flooded that used to make a mess in your battery tray.

 

[dochawk]

Walmart's battery quality apparently varies wildly by type.

The guy that came out for the service call for my parents said that they'd had to stop mocking them as "never start", as they're now one of the least frequent to come out on.

However . . . after years of using duralast gold with 3 years of swap and 7 of prorate, as they failed at right around 3 years in this climate giving either a new battery or a minimal cost for a new one, proration disappeared during covid, it seems.

so I tried a Walmart for my deville. When I brought it in 11 months later, they didn't even test it before handing me another one!

not only that, but he said he'd be seeing me again before the three years were up!

it's a group 78, with side posts.

 

[sajohnson]

Walmart's battery quality apparently varies wildly by type.

The guy that came out for the service call for my parents said that they'd had to stop mocking them as "never start", as they're now one of the least frequent to come out on.

However . . . after years of using duralast gold with 3 years of swap and 7 of prorate, as they failed at right around 3 years in this climate giving either a new battery or a minimal cost for a new one, proration disappeared during covid, it seems.

so I tried a Walmart for my deville. When I brought it in 11 months later, they didn't even test it before handing me another one!

not only that, but he said he'd be seeing me again before the three years were up!

it's a group 78, with side posts.

I had a similar experience years ago.

I had purchased 2 'universal' type batteries with both top and side terminals. They had a 3 year full replacement warranty.

One started getting weak after about 2 years. The other one seemed OK, but I figured I might as well get it replaced also to be safe -- if they'd go for it.

I took both batteries in and without even testing them they gave me 2 new ones -- and for some reason they insisted on giving me a small amount of money as well (~$3). I never understood that.

What really surprised me was that the replacement batteries had the same full 3 year replacement warranty. I didn't do it, but it occurred to me that a person could have new batteries for life by returning them every couple years.

I'm not sure, but I thought they stopped giving the full 3 year warranty on replacements -- just the remainder of the warranty on the old battery (replace a 2 year old battery and the new one has a one (1) year full replacement warranty). I haven't confirmed that though.

 

[HeyBales]

I'm absolutely annoyed by the '25 Maverick Hybrid 12v battery discharge issues. I had the battery charged to 12.3v and tested today after the fourth battery saver alert in five days. This time the battery was at 6v and the truck was deceased. I made an appt with a different dealer after the selling dealer had attempted to convince me my 12v accessory phone charger and OBDII reader caused the low battery warnings last week. I have to take a friend to the Dr. in the morning so I have my little 6amp battery charger hooked up and charging all night long. This is absolutely ridiculous! My 2014 Fusion hybrid would kill its 12v batteries from time to time as well. I guess Ford still doesn't have their act together.

Do your trouble-codes give a time stamp on a more info screen?
My Forscan Lite doesn't annoyingly - or I'm looking in the wrong place.
I seem to recall in the past that DTC's that set the MIL did have a timestamp, along with the saved basic sensor data for that event to perhaps assist figuring out how to duplicate it, just like most decent OBD scanners do.

And ya - you got a parasitic draw - if it wasn't for the SSM that said don't troubleshoot them, just apply the ACCM software update and confirm battery isn't dead - perhaps you'd get more action from the techs or Ford willing to allow them to do deeper dive under warranty.

 

[Robot-Wrangler]

Do your trouble-codes give a time stamp on a more info screen?
My Forscan Lite doesn't annoyingly - or I'm looking in the wrong place.
I seem to recall in the past that DTC's that set the MIL did have a timestamp, along with the saved basic sensor data for that event to perhaps assist figuring out how to duplicate it, just like most decent OBD scanners do.

And ya - you got a parasitic draw - if it wasn't for the SSM that said don't troubleshoot them, just apply the ACCM software update and confirm battery isn't dead - perhaps you'd get more action from the techs or Ford willing to allow them to do deeper dive under warranty.

Two dealers only checked the 12v battery. That battery is fine, it just gets drained. I'll see if they cleared the codes. I just drove 105 miles in the rain round trip to pick it up and bring it home. I'll get it unloaded and check for codes.

 

[Robot-Wrangler]

Do your trouble-codes give a time stamp on a more info screen?
My Forscan Lite doesn't annoyingly - or I'm looking in the wrong place.
I seem to recall in the past that DTC's that set the MIL did have a timestamp, along with the saved basic sensor data for that event to perhaps assist figuring out how to duplicate it, just like most decent OBD scanners do.

And ya - you got a parasitic draw - if it wasn't for the SSM that said don't troubleshoot them, just apply the ACCM software update and confirm battery isn't dead - perhaps you'd get more action from the techs or Ford willing to allow them to do deeper dive under warranty.

No time stamp available but I know they occurred shortly after the message on my phone. It went into battery saver mode at 9:28pm and was bricked by 7:00am. The overnight low temp was 31°F. I let Swope Ford keep it an extra day but the temp didn't drop below 48°F. I'm thinking seriously of installing one of my deep cycle batteries. I bought two group 31 on 50% clearance a year and a half ago and didn't use them yet. I trickle charge them now and then. I'm thinking of gutting the plastic under the rear seat completely and using both in parallel. That's about 2,000 amps cca total. I don't want to have to "Fiddle" with this again. It wastes two days with each useless trip to Ford.

 

[Hybrid25XLTAWD]

as long as we're talking batteries & manufacturers:

I see a truck (maybe multiple trucks running the same signage) sometimes while I'm making my daily 445 mile round trip between WA and Portland, OR.

to the best of my recollection, the truck signage mentions something to the effect that this brand of battery powers like 70% of the vehicles on the road...yet I've never heard of CLARIOS.

who knows anything aobut this brand/manufacturer/battery?

 

[MaverickDragon]

@Hybrid25XLTAWD
I'd never heard of the CLARIOS company name before, but apparently half of all U.S. vehicle batteries (there are lots of non-road use batteries in agricultural and military uses) are made and distributed by Clarios under various brand names DIeHard, Duralast, AC Delco, Optima and several others I'd never heard of.

An article also said they are investing $6 Billion over the next 10 years in US manufacturing...

 

[dochawk]

and for some reason they insisted on giving me a small amount of money as well (~$3). I never understood that.

It sounds like they were refunding the old one, and then selling the new one. If the price of the new one was lower, you'd have change coming.

10+ years ago, I brought my MacBook Pro in multiple times for its odd overnight crashes. It was throwing codes that weren't even in apple's database!

The third (?) time, I got a "here's what we're going to do for you."

they refunded the machine, and then sold me the newer, slightly more expensive, one at the same point in the line for the same price.

They told me that there were three reasons:
1) Unlike many, I'd actually appreciate what they were doing,
2) I always came in with interesting questions (machines in general do, uh, interesting things in my presence, and
3) The engineers in Cupertino *really* wanted to get their mitts on this machine to figure out what was going on.

As it turned out, apparently, mine was the first one they encountered that was crashing when switching video chips (performande/low power) while asleep, or some such. It was later acknowledged as an issue.

 

[Cherokee]

If Ford wants my Maverick back for study they’ll have to,
‘pry it from my cold dead fingers.’
:’P
The wolves will get it, the sheep won’t.

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