geordi wrote:
Best battery for the CRD? That's easy: A BIG ONE.
The only thing our CRD wants is happy cranking amps, and lots of them. It doesn't matter whether they from from a standard wet cell lead acid or from a gel-cell Optima.
I will say that I replaced my dead Optima with a Wally-World Maxx... And the thing has been getting slower and slower to crank the engine as the weather has been colder. The battery is only a year old, but typical Wal=Mart quality: Not much. I took it in to get it replaced, and they now have a mandatory we-must-test-it-for-hours policy, as well as (at least in South Florida) a policy that you MUST have the original sales receipt in order to get a replacement battery.
Cute.
Would that be the original sales receipt that was printed on thermal paper that bleaches itself clean in about 45 days, or darkens to 100% opaque grey fuzz if in the presence of a moderate amount of heat, like say... in the "receipt pouch" that is glued to THE BATTERY ITSELF?
Yea... So no receipt for me. Their magical machine chewed on the battery for 90 minutes, and shoved a charge into it, then told me that the 1000 CA battery (850 cca) was able to put out 1020 amps, so it is good.
Hmm. It does seem to be performing properly at-the-moment... But I don't trust it to keep living if we get another bad cold snap. I know the alternator is charging, my radar detector has a volt meter gauge on screen all the time. 14.6 volts measured most recently. Interestingly enough, before Wal-Mart's machine chewed on the battery, the volt meter reading was 14.2 usually. I don't know if the contacts got jostled or the battery just needed a high-amp charge to clean the plates... But it seems to be OK for the moment.
Next battery will be from Costco, to match all my other vehicles. 36 month FULL REFUND from Costco on all their batteries. Great company.
Optima's are not gell-celled.The P1 has a 4 year free replacement warranty and then another 100month prorated warranty after the 4 years.