Battery shopping at the rack. Besides fresher=better, what voltage would you accept as new-enough?

D

don-7519

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Mar 6, 2023
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For a change I have a bit time to actually *shop* a for a new battery.
Today, at the closest retail, had a few in my size, some Dec some March. Took a (well calibrated) DMM with me.
The March were 12.45-12.5V, the Dec about 12.55V (recharged at some point?).

I thought I'd be looking above 12.6 V. Is that realistic in a retail environment?

Thanks for opinion...
 
don-7519 said:
For a change I have a bit time to actually *shop* a for a new battery.
Today, at the closest retail, had a few in my size, some Dec some March. Took a (well calibrated) DMM with me.
The March were 12.45-12.5V, the Dec about 12.55V (recharged at some point?).

I thought I'd be looking above 12.6 V. Is that realistic in a retail environment?

Thanks for opinion...
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A battery really needs to be measured under load. Most batteries on the shelf are not fully charged anyway. Go by the date sticker or code on the battery.
 
On a side note, my local battery supplier claims there is a battery supply issue. He submitted a $3,000,000 PO to his supplier and could only get fulfillment on $900,000. No ETA on the rest of the order. A major manufacturer cut production by 30%, Penn IIRC.
No reason for him to give me false info on this.
Strange info and strange times we're in.
 
atikovi said:
Where are you shopping that they have 6 month old batteries on the shelf? I know the last time I bought a low price battery at Walmart, they turn over so fast they were all current or 1 month old.
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I think shops with a small selection of Interstate Batteries might have some "old and dusty" ones. They only have space for 10 or 20 batteries and have no idea what cars will arrive in their shop needing a new battery. The Interstate Dealer (with the Interstate truck) should be going around to resupply and swap in fresh for old.
 
Back in the day when I worked for Gould we were the largest auto start battery manufacturer in the US. Almost all private label batteries. Our factory did not make auto batteries though. But they had an entire plant in Leavenworth KS that took in the batteries that were retuned from suppliers for low voltage. Gave them a boost and wash, put on new labels ands sold them as reconditioned.

Two senior executives of Sears went to prison for their connection in reselling old Sears batteries as new. This was all in the 80's.
 
Those battery testers that they sell on amazon are really nice. I bought a similar one-off of amazon over a year ago And I've also lent it to many of my relatives. Two times it detected batteries that were ready to die for some of my relatives. Definitely a nice thing to also have a long whenever you're checking out batteries at a rack of batteries at walmart. Basically there are two types of walmarts those that have an actual automotive personnel department and those that just sell batteries. The ones that just sell batteries allow you full access to the batteries and you can check the batteries and choose which one you want.
 
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Hey, Thanks for comments. Of course, if the starting gets really bad, will just get best-date.

It was Autozone. (No clubs or WMs here.) Last battery-buy (AdvAuto), the best I got was a 4-month old one, so I was surprised to see a couple of March-manufactured (as per the case-code) batteries (which as usual have an April sticker).

Mostly was curious to survey what open-circuit voltage people actually had measured at the battery rack - especially where fresher batteries are stocked - and maybe lower expectations from 10.6+. Depending on what flooded lead-acid charts you find online, the 12.45V measured at AZone might correspond to as low as 75% SoC.
 
don-7519 said:
For a change I have a bit time to actually *shop* a for a new battery.
Today, at the closest retail, had a few in my size, some Dec some March. Took a (well calibrated) DMM with me.
The March were 12.45-12.5V, the Dec about 12.55V (recharged at some point?).

I thought I'd be looking above 12.6 V. Is that realistic in a retail environment?

Thanks for opinion...
Click to expand...
Get a conductance battery tester. Not that expensive.
 
Donald said:
That should not happen. They might get charged but the mfg date should not change.
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As evidenced by store sightings of pre-dated examples, those small round stickers that JCI likes to use shouldn't be interpreted as 1:1 representative of the manufacture date.

While that's how JCI does it, I've seen dates on others which are part of more comprehensively detailed stickers which were likely applied at the factory, not somewhere in the supply chain.

Ultimately, the one that can be trusted is the serial, or additional number, which has the manufacture date coded into the sequence, and is likely to be hot melted into the casing.
 
I wouldn't pay too much attention to stuff like whether it's 12.45V or 12.65V. Not meaningful. I've never thought about bring a multimeter to Walmart and checking all the batteries before. I'm totally going to do that just to see if any are total duds
 
SHOZ said:
Two senior executives of Sears went to prison for their connection in reselling old Sears batteries as new. This was all in the 80's.
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Searched, and the only story I could find was from the late 1990s. Fines, but no one went to jail. Rarely do corp executives get prison time, even when their actions cause deaths. For sure no one is getting jail time for fraud. This was only one region of Sears alleged to the misdeeds, not the entire company...but who really knows?

https://money.cnn.com/1999/04/06/home_auto/sears/
 
f355spider said:
Searched, and the only story I could find was from the late 1990s. Fines, but no one went to jail. Rarely do corp executives get prison time, even when their actions cause deaths. For sure no one is getting jail time for fraud. This was only one region of Sears alleged to the misdeeds, not the entire company...but who really knows?

https://money.cnn.com/1999/04/06/home_auto/sears/
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At the time Exide was making Sears car batteries. Exide got ran out of the country and ran to Europe for 10 years or so. I think that story isn't the original because it was in the 80s iirc.

Gould became GNB and was #1 in agm industrial but concentrated more on them that Auto start so the likes of Johnson controls dominated that then. Exide came back around 2000 and bought GNB.

Exide wanted to change the name from GNB to Exide industrial but the customers and sales had a fit. They had been beating Exide over the head for 20 years about shoddy quality.
 
Donald said:
I think shops with a small selection of Interstate Batteries might have some "old and dusty" ones. They only have space for 10 or 20 batteries and have no idea what cars will arrive in their shop needing a new battery. The Interstate Dealer (with the Interstate truck) should be going around to resupply and swap in fresh for old.
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MY friend has a small independent honda/acura shop and Interstate comes every few weeks and takes the older batteries. Although he sells the batteries pretty quickly.
 
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