Project Farm tests Walmart and O'Reilly batteries

[Hall]

My local Walmart has nothing but clarios and I'm on the east coast.

I think the regional supplier aspect is no longer the case. All indications are that it used to be true, but doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I'm in Ohio and I have gotten East Penn batteries from Walmart before. It's been a few years since I've bought one and I don't "inspect" them for manufacturer otherwise.

 

[PMT133]

I think the regional supplier aspect is no longer the case. All indications are that it used to be true, but doesn't seem to be the case anymore. I'm in Ohio and I have gotten East Penn batteries from Walmart before. It's been a few years since I've bought one and I don't "inspect" them for manufacturer otherwise.

I don't particularly care either. Case alone there is enough difference to see which is which at a glance anyway. I seem to get better luck from east penn but I'm sure someone else would say exactly the opposite lol.

 

[Chris142]

5+ years ago when I was working for Apple Valley construction they were using the local battery mart for batteries. Had so much trouble with those batteries that they asked me to switch to another supplier.

I went with orileys. Those batteries were worse! We were lucky to get 3 months out of a battery.

 

[martinq]

I definitely don't hate Project Farm and don't understand the few that do. He does tests & compares the results, documents, explains and then tries to come to a conclusion about which is "good" and/or "worth the money". I wish we had 100 channels doing this work on everything I would ever think to purchase.

 

[martinq]

PF can be annoying and certain tests are entertainment only.

I liked his pliers testing etc.

I agree that his supple and rich, buttery, vocal-tone is not for everyone or every occasion.

 

[SC Maintenance]

I don't hate project form, I find it somewhat entertaining. However I have watched a couple where what he was testing I knew something about, and his "testing" wasn't at all scientific. So I must assume when he is testing something I don't know much about then its the same.

I think what most who don't like him complaint is he represents his finding as some sort of quantitative facts, which there not. ie he is simply clickbait like most of Youtube anymore.

Case in point here - he is testing "Walmart" batteries even though we know Walmart uses multiple suppliers which may make the battery different, and he is only testing off the shelf performance which is mostly meaningless. Most batteries fail due to age decline. Hence the posted video I don't find of much value. I believe when you buy a Walmart battery what you are essentially buying is there warranty.

 

[martinq]

I don't hate project form, I find it somewhat entertaining. However I have watched a couple where what he was testing I knew something about, and his "testing" wasn't at all scientific. So I must assume when he is testing something I don't know much about then its the same.

I think what most who don't like him complaint is he represents his finding as some sort of quantitative facts, which there not. ie he is simply clickbait like most of Youtube anymore.

Case in point here - he is testing "Walmart" batteries even though we know Walmart uses multiple suppliers which may make the battery different, and he is only testing off the shelf performance which is mostly meaningless. Most batteries fail due to age decline. Hence the posted video I don't find of much value. I believe when you buy a Walmart battery what you are essentially buying is there warranty.

Out of all the thousands of click-bait videos I've come across, Project Farm is about as far away from that as I could imagine. Every one of his videos has been useful, interesting and fairly consistent to me and I usually see exactly what I was expecting. Maybe his title-cards are what you describe as click-bait?

I wish I had the time and resources to test and document things the way he does. I'm definitely a bit envious but always appreciate his content even if some of it is a little goofy or vague. I can only hope that more channels are inspired to do this kind of work and hopefully surpass the bar set by Todd / Project Farm.

 

[Hall]

I agree that his supple and rich, buttery, vocal-tone is not for everyone or every occasion.

His videos are also clearly sped up to fit in a time window that's optimal for YT's scoring system. Speeding it up will technically make his voice slightly higher pitched too.

 

[f355spider]

I'd bet that the retailers cover the warranty costs 100% themselves and don't go back to whoever their supplier/manufacturer is, so it's a business decision they've made. In the case of WM, along with buying volume, this is how they buy and sell them so much lower than everyone else.

It depends on how the contract was written. Many times, to ease the warranty process, manufacturers and retailers come up with a formula based on past history of warranty claims. The manufacturer uses that formula to automatically give an "off invoice" allowance on each invoice purchase to cover for the retailer to handle warranty claims at the store level. If there is an unusual slew of claims out of the ordinary, that can be negotiated with the manufacturer.

 

[gfh77665]

"We" don't hate PF, "some" do, some don't. Personally I appreciate PF. He never claims to be more than he is, a seat-of-the-pants benchtop experimenter with automotive products, nothing more. He clearly, openly stays in his lane and never calls himself an "expert giving out expert advice". Its so easy to just not click on PF if not interested, while others can watch with interest. That's all it takes.

 

[PandaBear]

All the usual arguments are true, a sample of 1 is garbage, methodology is crap, etc., but the uniformity of the results is interesting.

Thank you very much. So this is a high school science project. Very entertaining and not much else worth taken away from.

I trust what people on the internet complains about better. At least those were real people who could or couldn't warranty return / start their car in the winter and had grudges.

 

[PandaBear]

Isn’t BH subjective anyway - nobody is checking that - it cranks until it doesn’t years later …

That's like saying LiMh battery is crap compare to Alkaline because it starts at 1.2V instead of 1.5V. We all know it is how long it last rather than how many % health that matters.

 

[PandaBear]

I FF'd through the video and it's the state-of-health that knocks down the WM batteries. Makes you wonder if WM specs the manufacturer to sell them the ones that test between values "X" and "Y", kinda like how Intel specs CPUs - in the same 'class', they're all the same but test out at different clock speeds, so Intel sells this one as a speed "x", another at speed "y", and so on.

Let's put it this way. It takes skill to bin and build a battery with just enough safety margin and sell it at a discount vs competitor. Everyone would do just enough and lower the price enough to do that, but many are worried and put in enough safety margin or give you a hard time in warranty return so they don't lose their shirts.

Maybe Walmart really knows what they are doing and parts store has to put in enough safety margin just in case, and the customers have to decide whether it is worth the extra. I am not sure if I trust anything other than warranty length. They can test it good one year and all of a sudden a private equity comes in and flip the script, selling junk without you finding out till 1 year later.

 

[PandaBear]

See what you mean about flawed, what should he do?

Take a look at a bunch of dead battery from recycle centers and group them based on the manufacturing date.

If you have a large enough bell curve that skew one brand to another you have a much more realistic end of life / duration test result. What PF did is infant mortality test and basically correlate a MTBF test. It won't tell you how long it would last just how likely it is bad from QA slip.

 

[thastinger]

Then there are good US companies who don't even try to get into the SLI battery market, likely because their product price would eliminate them from consideration by most. US Battery makes a deep cycle golf cart battery that is on par with any FLA you can buy and the company is 100 years old, but they don't make SLI batteries.

 

[ripcord]

One big issue with this video that Walmart (for sure) and probably O'rielly, too, is that they use multiple sources for the batteries they sell. The Walmart battery you bought a few years ago in New England is not going to be made by the same supplier as the one you bought on the West Coast this year. Apples and kumquats.

I have a Walmart Value group 65 that is around 5 years old and still cranks my truck fine. It was getting a little weak last year so I gave it a hard equalization charge that pepped it right back up. It would be at 12.5 volts after sitting a few days after a charge but now it stays at 12.7 again.

 

[supton]

I kinda don't care that the batteries are only "85% good" or whatever new. I should but I don't. My cars have those reduction geared starters and have found that a battery that would go dead if left sitting more than 3 days will reliably start if only left for 1 day. No reserve of course, and long past the point they should have been replaced--but my point is, starting just isn't that hard for the vehicles I've had for the last number of years. If I can save a few bucks up front and still get 7-ish years out of a battery... I'm not sure if I am somehow bothered by the loss.

Cold-ish environment here in the Northeast with rather new-ish cars so they tend to last for me. YMMV down south and as cars get older, drivers get younger, or cell service is not existent. Or if every amp for every minute counts in your hard starting vehicle, I know those do exist, I just don't own one.

 

[martinq]

His videos are also clearly sped up to fit in a time window that's optimal for YT's scoring system. Speeding it up will technically make his voice slightly higher pitched too.

It's possible but after viewing past videos I think it's mostly his learned / tuned behaviour (speaking faster, higher pitch). I have seen many videos that are definitely speed tweaked but they are never pitch shifted. I wouldn't doubt he's experienced in optimizing his video content due to his huge channel growth / success.

 

[danstraylee]

I definitely don't hate Project Farm and don't understand the few that do.

I don't understand either. It's a barrel of laughs from beginning to end with his auctioneer fast talk!! I quite enjoy the entertainment value of channels like this. For a side show that has zero value to testing of products, I can see why viewers enjoy the comedy value of it.

Strange thing is just by reading the comments of his act, there are viewers who actually take Project Farm seriously.

 

[martinq]

I don't understand either. It's a barrel of laughs from beginning to end with his auctioneer fast talk!! I quite enjoy the entertainment value of channels like this. For a side show that has zero value to testing of products, I can see why viewers enjoy the comedy value of it.

Strange thing is just by reading the comments of his act, there are viewers who actually take Project Farm seriously.

Yes I definitely take him and his efforts seriously. I wish I had the time to test / measure / report all the things I am interested in. I certainly appreciate his content, I only wish there was much more of it.