wally world batteries

[drv2die]

been reading around and seems people have a had time keeping batteries in there ev's something ive ran across in my work is wally world has a wonderful exchange policy on most of there batteries which are usually cheaper ( i know there floodies but if you get a new set for free ) i have had four of these batteries in different non ev cars that went out 2 i had bought and ran dead and 1 was in a car i bought found the receipt in the glove box the other battery i got from work totally free. i just took them to wally world they usually tell me they need to charge and retest them. i let them do there thing to them then they try to give me a prorate or sell me another battery. i then go into offense mode tell how the battery is only 6 months old my cars on the side of the road ( or how i had to be towed ) after 5 min of haggling i have a new battery. now i know with a big pack you couldnt go to the same store but there are at 6 stores around me. just stating i did get the one battery from work warrantied out with out a receipt it just took around 20 min of negotiating and i got to talk to the manager. let me know what you think about it.

[Ryland]

I would rather spend the extra 10-20% and have a pack that will last me 5 years or more, instead of going in every 6 months or even every 2 years to get them replaced and with the trouble of have reduced range or having a battery fail I just don't see the value in using a sub par product battery.

[drv2die]

what batteries would be ideal and affordable for an ev. i am new to the ev seen and most people around me just by more fuel effcient cars or just pay out the nose for gas. i want of the fuel grid all together and plan on charging while at work so i drive for free and in theory actually get a raise

[Ryland]

First key to long battery life is to treat them well, monitoring the batteries or having a battery management system helps a great deal with this, I use a PakTrakr, it's more or less a volt meter that connects to each battery then gives you a combined read out, acting like a fuel gauge, but it also acts as a check engine light, only for your batteries and gives you a visual bar graph of your entire pack so you can see if a single battery is falling behind or getting over charged, this can be caused by a defective battery or a bad connection.
Keeping the water level in flooded batteries topped off is also key, the harder you cycle your batteries the more you have to keep on eye on the water level.
In picking out batteries choose some that are designed to be traction batteries, they tend to have heavier plates along with being deep cycle, an RV battery or trolling motor battery is going to be a deep cycle battery but it's not a traction battery and that heavy use in powering a vehicle is going to make light duty deep cycle batteries fail quicker, the most common deep cycle traction battery is the 6v golf cart battery, the only time I would go with a 12v battery is if you were running high voltage or were building a motorcycle.

[drv2die]

thanks for the info i'll see if i can find a source for the golf cart batteries besides the local golf course. i know of several golf cart manufactures around and a place that recycles or batteries from the dealership i work at . again thanks

[Frank Lee]

Seems a bit like lying and theft to me.

[billhac]

dry2die, i used the walmart deep cycle batteries, in me ev neon and have great sucess with them, yes to almost everything stated in this post, but iv had my ev on the road for 2 years, and just had to replace the pack, i bought all the batteries from walmart so i got a prorated warrentee for them. but keep in mind that i dont do a lot of highway travel on my commute. i dont think the batteries would hold up as well if i were getting on the highway everyday to go to work, but if your commute is around town they will work just fine, my car is operated at 96v and has a 300ah pack of walmart deep cycle batteries, the top speed on my car is 65, so i can get on the highway but range is greatly reduced. you need to figure out a realistic build plan on what you want your car do do then build it accordingly.here is the link to my car should you want to look at it. Bill Hackney's 1996 Dodge Neon
i am currently building EV#2 and will still use the walmart batteries to power it as well.

[Ryland]

Originally Posted by Frank Lee

Seems a bit like lying and theft to me.

True, it might be easier just to buy scrap batteries and print out your own labels and receipt for them and skip the arguing and prorating.

Fact of the matter is, if you buy a sub par product it's not helping companies that do a good job and it's not making electric vehicles look good and if you lie or steal to make up for poor choices then it makes electric vehicle owners look bad as well.
I buy decent batteries for my EV because in the long run I don't have the time nor can I afford to buy low quality.

[drv2die]

im not sure about the printing your own labels thing that would probably be fraud. the exchange policy is already effective when i buy the battery so i dont think its stealing. true there are better batt's out there but i have had some good luck with wally world batteries too. ive had some really crappy ones but batteries are usually a crap shoot.im gonna check and see if i can find the 6 volt golf batt's previously mentioned to me. if not i'll be running the everstart pack. plus there is always a bum or crack head at the walmart gas station trying to trade a giftcard for cash ive gotten them as low as %50 before 40 bucks for a 77 dollar gift card aint bad. and the auto center takes them.

[Ford Man]

Depending on which level battery you buy at Walmart they will have anywhere from a 1-3 year replacement warranty and should only be prorated after the free replacement period has expired. For normal automotive use (not electric vehicles) I've used Walmart batteries and they usually last pretty well unless the car sits idle for a long period of time then the batteries will sometimes fail prematurely.