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NAPA Group 31 batteries Bad Batch?
** UPDATE**
Bus batteries were down again, so I removed and fully charged them, then took them to NAPA and had them load tested, all came up as ‘REPLACE BATTERY”
This is where I entered the twilight zone.
I bought 4 new 7236 950CCA batteries. I put them on my charger just to make sure they were fully charged before installing. two of the batteries were at 95% 12.8 amps and two were only at 10% charge and 12.1 amps, so I took the two back and they were indeed bad. This NAPA store sent me to their distribution center as I had bought the last four they had in stock. The distribution center had twelve of them. To make sure I got two good batteries I asked them to load test them. All twelve batteries failed the load test. They said a store down the street has two in stock so I went there, they tested them and both were bad. I found another local store that had two in stock. One was good and one was bad.
ALL of these batteries were dated 12/21 so made this month. With such a high rate of failures, I’m wondering if I should just go a different direction?
**UPDATE**
In the quest for good batteries, I reached out to yet another NAPA who had six in stock. He load tested them and found 3 of the 6 were good, but then he did something none of the other employees did. Instead of clamping to the stud, he held his clamps to the little circular baseplate the stud comes out of, and… the “bad” batteries then tested good. So somehow, some, not all, of these batteries have resistance when just connecting to the stud and so the tester is sensing a bad battery.
Question:
How important is it to have the battery test good at the stud?
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15 Replies
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Wow! I’m a dedicated user of NAPA batteries and strong proponent. Where these NAPA Legend batteries?
How old were the batteries you replaced?
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Dick-
I have no experience with the NAPA group 31 batteries, I was just going by what seems to be a very positive opinion here on the forum. I’m thinking this may just be a bad batch. As I said, they are all dated coded 12/21. Bay area CA.
I’m not sure of the age of the chassis batteries, they were in the bus when I bought it. The only code I see on the battery is OJKD13. I would find it hard to believe they were from 2013.
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Luc, stranger things have happered. This summer I replaced the 4 NAPA #7236 gp 31 batteries that had been in our bus since 2013. Replaced with NAPA #7234.
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Don-
Wow, that is a long run on those batteries.
Ok, I will look into the 7234, they have a higher CCA, 1150 vs 950, and hopefully I can find 4 in good conditon.
Thanks
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Never paid much attention to my start batteries, past owner installed them, they are group 29DC Everstart,Walmart batteries they are at least 5 to six years old and they are holding even in cold weather they crank great. I have never bought Walmart batteries before but these work good, looked on Walmart website and they are like 84 bucks each, lots of Walmarts around.
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I change my chassis batteries every five years regardless of condition. I always use Delco 1150 or 1110. I always use batteries with the same date codes.
It is a given I could likely get many more years of use because a friend always gets my old batteries and I know the last set he got was 5 years ago and he is still using them. I paid just under $100 each for my last 4 so at $400 for the set and 5 year life it is worth replacing them to avoid ever having a battery issue on the road.
My cost for chassis batteries is $80 per year, if I stretch it to 6 years I save $13 or have a cost of $66.66 per year, 7 years is an annual cost of $57 so be driving around with old batteries to save so little is a risk I am never going to take.
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+1 on the Delco batteries. While I don’t have years and years of experience with them, they seem to hold up well. I replaced chassis batteries in May. The old set were dated 2012 (put in by the previous owner). Like Jon, I will replace on a 5 year or so schedule.
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The date code on batteries 12 / 21 is week 12 of 2021.
Finding all of the batteries unable to pass a strength test is the fault of the distribution center. Just a wild guess that the stock has not been rotated by warehouse employees.
AL
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Al-
I didn’t know that.
All of the NAPA employees that I have spoken with said it meant 12 month 21 year, so that they were fresh.
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NAPA could be different but I have never seen a battery labeled by week and year but only by month and year. Tires are labeled week and year but confused by the above post. My guess is that these are Dec. 2021 batteries.
2025 Marathon H3 / 4th Prevost
21 Ram 1500 EcoDiesel 4x4 -
Bill-
That would make more sense, as it’s hard to believe all four of the NAPA stores I have been to are sitting on batteries made last March. It is written 12/21 on the batteries.
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They fixed it boys…
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Good deal Thanks!
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I was able to find one NAPA battery that load tested good in store yesterday. A model 7234. It load tested 12.66, so I bought it, brought it home and put it on the 6amp charge setting to top it off. Just for comparison I did the same thing with my 8 year old battery, and got them both to 100% at which point the charger stops charging. The new battery was at 78% before I started charging it.
I changed the read out from percentage to amps and my old battery on left said 12.7 the new battery still said 12.6 This morning, my old battery still read 12.7, but the new battery read 12.5
Tired of lugging batteries back and forth, so think I will try another brand this time around.
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I wonder what happened – East Penn/Deka has a pretty good reputation for starting batteries.
2000 Featherlite H3-45
2024 Jeep Grand Cherokee
Leesburg, FL
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