The base of both these batteries are identical and the way my battery box works is that it has a little plastic piece lookin’-thing that grabs the base rather than having a strap that goes over the top of the battery.
Looking for a good battery for my 2018 Ram 1500 Limited
- Thread starter Corneileous
- Start date
Question- I’m looking at batteries at Walmart and they do have the AGM H8’s but the serial number starts with a “JC” so I’m assuming that means it’s a Johnson/Johnston Controls? It also says it’s made in China, too. They also have the H7 that my truck actually calls for that has a “DNA” starting the serial number and says it’s made with in Korea but at least it’s dated 1/25. All the H8’s they have are already a year old as they’re labeled 1/25.
Should I just shop at a different store? I mean, untill I do anything like I did before, I won’t have a battery issue…
Should I just shop at a different store? I mean, untill I do anything like I did before, I won’t have a battery issue…
WalMart's "JC" batteries are made by Clarios (formerly known as Johnson Controls). The "DNA" batteries are from DN Automotive, a Korean manufacturing firm. Given those choice, I would opt to go with the East Penn manufactured DURACELL AGM H8 battery at Sam's Club, albeit with only the 3 year warranty.
If you are not in any hurry, Sam's Club puts their batteries on sale ~3 times a year with a $20 discount. I'd expect the next sale to be in the March-April timeframe.
H8 seems to be pretty common upgrade for Rams, hold down is on the side so you're fine. Seems like a lot of them on you tube come with AGM.
AGMs are less happy with underhood temps, so make sure to replace the battery blanket.
AGMs are less happy with underhood temps, so make sure to replace the battery blanket.
2008 Mercedes S550 has a battery under hood, in dash and in trunk.
I guess I could be wrong, but it seems to me like the reason why the H8 is a very common upgrade for these ram pick ups is because the H8 is actually the OE battery type for the Eco diesel.
I know the power demand of my ram pick up is probably a lot more than what it was in my wife’s 2017 Honda Civic but whenever the day comes to go down to my Sam’s Club to look at the Duracell’s, there’s several big Walmarts I can stop at along the way and if I can’t find any of their AGM’s that have that EP in the serial number, I’ll just get a Duracell because we put one of those regular Duracell’s in her car about 5 and a half years ago and it was still going strong when we traded the car off.
So, I came across some information that says whenever I go to maintain my battery that because of the fact, I have an intelligent battery sensor, that I’m supposed to leave the battery connected to the vehicle and instead of putting the negative battery clamp on the actual negative clamp that it’s supposed to be connected to part of the battery sensor so that supposedly The truck can monitor from the charger how the battery’s being charged? This below is what I’m taking about which, I know it refers more to the newer trucks with that start/stop crap but it’s the part about where I mentions blind charging.
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2020/MC-10173323-9999.pdf
https://static.nhtsa.gov/odi/tsbs/2020/MC-10173323-9999.pdf
Well guys, I appreciate everybody’s input, but it sounds like I’m gonna be going with a Duracell AGM from my Sam’s Club. I’ll probably still have to find out for sure when I get down there because when I called, I was connected to some random phone number for Sam’s Club instead of being able to talk to somebody that was at the store but the person I spoke with assured me that their Duracell batteries do come from that east penn manufacturing plant so who knows, maybe that’s why that Duracell we bought from Sam’s for the car my wife used to have, lasted for over five years and is probably still going strong.
That's the happy medium.
That's the happy medium.
$200 for an AGM H7 is better than average, the retailer is convenient, and unless things have changed, the Duracell batteries from Sam's are supplied by East Penn and made domestically.
Websites often are not updated frequently enough to reflect changes, but Duracell's listing still links directly to East Penn for their SDS.
If what sits on the rack appears to match the pix, and is made in the U.S., that will confirm the relationship.
While the Everstart Maxx carries an addition year of warranty, they are sourced from multiple suppliers, so that's a lottery.
It's not unusual for battery compartments to have provisions to accommodate multiple sizes, especially for vehicle models that come with a variety of engine options. And with the common Hx series of applications, the width and height are identical; only the length varies. The potential compatibility issue is not the mount, or the compartment, but the length of the cables.
That's the happy medium.
$200 for an AGM H7 is better than average, the retailer is convenient, and unless things have changed, the Duracell batteries from Sam's are supplied by East Penn and made domestically.
Websites often are not updated frequently enough to reflect changes, but Duracell's listing still links directly to East Penn for their SDS.
If what sits on the rack appears to match the pix, and is made in the U.S., that will confirm the relationship.
While the Everstart Maxx carries an addition year of warranty, they are sourced from multiple suppliers, so that's a lottery.
It's not unusual for battery compartments to have provisions to accommodate multiple sizes, especially for vehicle models that come with a variety of engine options. And with the common Hx series of applications, the width and height are identical; only the length varies. The potential compatibility issue is not the mount, or the compartment, but the length of the cables.
Point of order, some cars (VW) have the hold down on the end.
Yeah, I’m about to pull my battery out of the truck so that I can put it in the car to exchange it and I will take a big look at those cables to make sure that H8 will work. Which, it should, being that if this truck had the eco-diesel in it, that’s the battery it would have but I get it, they could’ve used slightly different battery cables for the eco-diesel than what they used for this so I will definitely check that out.
Well, I bought my battery Saturday and I did go with the H8 Duracell AGM from Sam’s Club. Even with the core exchange, it was still about 219 bucks with tax which was roughly about the same price I paid three years ago for that regular H7 O’Reilly’s battery and also, it says right on the label that it was manufactured by East Penn so hopefully that’s a good thing.
Installation wasn’t too bad. There was a little removable plastic piece that looked like a book end for a shelf in the battery tray that I had to remove that was there for the smaller H7 battery and all else that I had to do was pop out a couple of those zip tie pushpins to get a little bit extra length on the negative battery cable but so far it works great. Put the battery charger on it after I installed it and it charged for about three hours.
Also went on Amazon and ordered a new battery blanket for the larger battery. The only thing though, when I run the truck, the needle on my battery charge gauge still reads about halfway between the halfway mark on the gauge and the three-quarter mark on the gauge so I don’t know what’s up with that. Thanks to all those that contributed.
Installation wasn’t too bad. There was a little removable plastic piece that looked like a book end for a shelf in the battery tray that I had to remove that was there for the smaller H7 battery and all else that I had to do was pop out a couple of those zip tie pushpins to get a little bit extra length on the negative battery cable but so far it works great. Put the battery charger on it after I installed it and it charged for about three hours.
Also went on Amazon and ordered a new battery blanket for the larger battery. The only thing though, when I run the truck, the needle on my battery charge gauge still reads about halfway between the halfway mark on the gauge and the three-quarter mark on the gauge so I don’t know what’s up with that. Thanks to all those that contributed.
Any Duracell starting battery is East-Penn AFAIK
And yes, they are or could very well be made in China: https://dekabatteries.cn/
Nice thing about an H8 is you get way better reserve time of 160 min.
And yes, they are or could very well be made in China: https://dekabatteries.cn/
Nice thing about an H8 is you get way better reserve time of 160 min.
Would it somehow say that somewhere on the battery?
According to Sam's Club's website, they're 170 minutes. Not trying to split hairs, just sayin'....lol.
But what exactly does that reserve time mean? Isn't that just an indicator of how long the battery will last until it's depleted from a constant discharge? I like that it has 975 CA's and 850 CCA's. The Oreileys battery didn't even have 850 CA's.
I’ve got 2 flooded batteries and one agm that’s in our car that gets driven the most. The agm is always at about 60% charged as opposed to the flooded being higher, but not by much. All 3 are Nissans and using the same smart charging systems. I started using chargers on all 3 a few times a week.
The only thing I can add is that, last week when it was below zero, I had some off the wall error pop up on my 21 Altima. It said something like “service now, engine power reduced”. This car had an efb installed from the factory, which to my understanding is just a beefed up flooded battery. I replaced it with a deka gold flooded standard battery, so I don’t know if that played a role? I spoke with the only Nissan tech I trust and he didn’t think it was anything more than a one off due to the cold. I did clean the maf sensor, changed the air filter and put my Noco on it and the next morning (which was colder) showed nothing. No codes are stored so I’m going with “it was -5”. I used a flooded battery at the advice of my tech stating that the smart charging system doesn’t play well with agm batteries. Whether that’s true or not, I have no idea. I do know that a couple of short trips and the agm battery is at 59%, as opposed to my deka gold being almost 60%. Before this year I didn’t use a maintainer and always got 3-4 yrs out of my batteries on these cars. They were still functional when I swapped them out as well.
Yeah, I don’t know either. I’ve been told different things concerning my truck about whether or not an AGM battery will work in place of a standard flooded battery but so far, I’ve had this battery for two weeks and it’s been doing awesome. Of course, it hasn’t been real real cold since I replaced it, but I’ve talked to other ram trucks owners that did the same thing I did. That’s all they use now is AGM batteries.
I will say that the charging time to bring the agm up to 100% is less than the flooded batteries. I figured, why spend the extra money if it wasn’t going to make a difference. Minus a fluke bad battery in my wife’s new car a few months back, all my batteries have made it past the warranty period. And that was without charging them up… literally ever! Hopefully since I’m a little more proactive moving forward they last longer.
Yeah, I noticed that too when I first bought this battery that when I charged it right after installation, it took about the same amount of time for the charger to say it was done as it did on my old battery that was three years old that one day I decided to put my charger on it but then again, maybe it had something to do with my charger too because like I think I said earlier in this thread, all I have is a little bitty small eight amp charger and a couple months ago when I decided to use the same charger to top off the little battery on my riding lawnmower, I think even it took almost about the same amount of time for the charger to say it was done.
