East Penn Batteries at Canadian Walmarts?

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I was walking through one of local Walmarts (in Vancouver) when I noticed the following battery on the shelves:

EverStart Maxx AGM Battery

It grabbed my attention since it didn't have the octagonal caps that JCI batteries are known for. According to the link it has "Power-Perform(tm) Plates" which appears to be a trademark of East-Penn. Pretty pricey but if you are in the market for an AGM battery, you may want to check out your local Walmart.

David
 
If you have a Costco membership, I'd highly recommend Kirkland batteries. It's not that expensive and it comes with 4 years warranty.
 
Originally Posted By: dgunay
If you have a Costco membership, I'd highly recommend Kirkland batteries. It's not that expensive and it comes with 4 years warranty.


+1
 
Originally Posted By: daves87rs
Never seen that battery here in the states....


U prob dont remember, they are branded kirkland
 
On a slightly related note, it is interesting that the photos of the car batteries on Canadian Tire's web site no longer look like Exide batteries. In fact, when I looked up the MotoMaster Eliminator AGM battery for my car (which is a group 35) the case looked identical to the Walmart AGM battery.

I wonder if East Penn is now making the batteries for CT. If that's true, I might end my boycott of CT batteries as I've had horrible luck with Exide batteries.

(For those recommending the Kirkland batteries from Costco, I'm actually not in the market for a new battery at this time. I just found it interesting that East Penn might be supplying batteries to Walmart now.)
 
The Deka Intimidator AGM battery is likely the most rebranded AGM battery there is.

http://www.dekabatteries.com/assets/base/1721IntimidatorCompleteline.pdf

This AGm does not have the super low self discharge of Odyssey or Northstar or Lifeline AGM, Nor the super high CCA figures of Odyssey/Northstar, nor the deep cycle attributes of Lifeline's super thick positive plates.

The Deka Intimidator, like many budget AGMS, also has a 30% maximum charge rate, meaning 30 amps maximum for a 100AH battery. 14.4v is the absorption voltage.

If you deeply cycle one of these, approach that 30% rate, charge to 14.4v @77f, and hold 14.4 until amps taper to 0.5% of the 20hr capacity, or 0.5 amps per 100Ah of capacity.

Ignore the 'trickle charge' crowd regarding proper charging of a depleted AGM. Trickle chargers will tickle one of these to death if it is cycled deeply.

If it is never discharged below 95%, it does not really matter though, but an unintentional discharge requires a high amp recharge to 100% full, not just a jump and a drive around the block.

Even though Deka says to limit initial current to no more than 30%, the battery itself, when depleted below 75% state of charge, can ask for way more than this with a large charging source available, like an Alternator spinning fast. If exceeded, the battery could vent, and these low resistance batteries might overheat an alternator trying to recharge it from a depleted state.

AGMs really dislike being kept under 100% charged, more so than flooded/wet batteries, so it behooves you to keep it as close to 100% charged as possible, and this means do not rely on the alternator to achieve this, especially if the vehicle sits for prolonged periods, or ever needs a jumpstart.

Far too many people assign superbattery status to AGMs because of their price and marketing, but they are finicky princesses who must be kept happy or they turn into your malignant Ex wife.
 
Originally Posted By: wrcsixeight

Far too many people assign superbattery status to AGMs because of their price and marketing, but they are finicky princesses who must be kept happy or they turn into your malignant Ex wife.


Thanks for the great info in your post. I'll keep that in mind when it's time for a new battery. So far I've had pretty good luck with conventional flooded/wet cell batteries made by JCI and East Penn. Pretty hard to beat the value proposition too when you factor in their prices from retailers like Costco and Walmart.
 
Originally Posted By: Stewie
Originally Posted By: daves87rs
Never seen that battery here in the states....


U prob dont remember, they are branded kirkland


There are no more Kirkland batteries. Costco sells Interstate branded now, though maybe they were the same thing.
 
Originally Posted By: Nate1979
Originally Posted By: Stewie
Originally Posted By: daves87rs
Never seen that battery here in the states....


U prob dont remember, they are branded kirkland


There are no more Kirkland batteries. Costco sells Interstate branded now, though maybe they were the same thing.


Weird, canuckland that's the only brand of battery there is in costco.
 
Originally Posted By: dk1604
On a slightly related note, it is interesting that the photos of the car batteries on Canadian Tire's web site no longer look like Exide batteries. In fact, when I looked up the MotoMaster Eliminator AGM battery for my car (which is a group 35) the case looked identical to the Walmart AGM battery.

I wonder if East Penn is now making the batteries for CT. If that's true, I might end my boycott of CT batteries as I've had horrible luck with Exide batteries.

(For those recommending the Kirkland batteries from Costco, I'm actually not in the market for a new battery at this time. I just found it interesting that East Penn might be supplying batteries to Walmart now.)


PartSource, a division of Canadian Tire, sells the AGM batteries as East Penn batteries and do not rebrand them. So it is highly likely that the Canadian Tire AGMs are also East Penn sourced.
 
Looks like Walmart is selling AGM batteries down here, under the name EverStart Platinum. Right now, they only have H6, H7, and H8, but I wouldn't be surprised if they expand the lineup.
 
Originally Posted By: FastLane
PartSource told me Excide went out of business.... And they are selling some Magnasomething brand until the figure out their stock.

MagnaPower batteries are made by East Penn.
 
I just bought a Everstart Maxx 40R battery at Walmart here in BC, Canada, following the Consumer Reports reviews of the Maxx made by Johnson Controls. But I noticed that the JC specs didn't match and it didn't look right. I had thought it was made by Exide until I found this post and figured out it's actually an East Penn. It's the same as a Deka Gold 640RMF - same specs, and even came with the same weird vent tube elbow that's shown on the Deka.

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640RMF%20ANGLE%20LOGO-800x800.jpg
 
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Oh, forgot to add that this East Penn EverStart Max 40R is a perfect fit for my 06 Ford Fusion, which is a very stight squeeze even for the original Motorcraft battery. It's identical to a Mazda 6 under the hood, so it should fit those just as well. The specs of the East Penn are also higher than the original Motorcraft (650 CCA vs 590). So all seems good and hope it lasts!

BTW, I read that the vent tube I mentioned in the previous post, and you can see on the side of the Deka, is only installed in applications where the battery location is inside the passenger area. So I didn't install mine.
 
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When I was last at Walmart I hadn't noticed that some of the conventional non-AGM batteries were made by East Penn. I assumed everything but the AGMs were made by JCI. It will be interesting to see how much of Walmart's battery lineup East Penn takes over.
 
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