Commercial battery lifespan

[DaveinSD]

Walmart batteries won’t cut it in a diesel pickup. My nice Ford had brand new Walmart batteries in it when I bought it, started having issues less than a year later. I played the charging game for six months then finally got tired of it and bought decent batteries. 

[catman13]

i have had good luck with CAT batteries,

i have disconnects on anything that's going sit awhile .

most brands are a crap-shoot on life span

[Rawleigh99]

Odyssey batteries.  You get what you pay for.

[TroyDairy]

20 hours ago, vtfireman85 said:

I’m very frustrated with some of our upper management, we are now on our 3rd set of Interstate group 31 dual batteries in my firetruck, another one failed and things started getting weird. I wanted to switch to Deka, handled by the local Napa, and we have an account there. I was told 3 years ( you can insert whatever amount of time between 10 months and 5 years you would like, the goalposts keep moving) is all you can hope for from a commercial battery. I call BS, I can point to multiple batteries (non interstate) that are well over 5 years. I just replaced 2 that were 10 years old. They love Interstate and I might as well go talk to the garage door to try to tell them otherwise.
 

so the big question, what is the expected service life from a battery? I am disappointed at anything under 5 personally. 
 

I should also add that this is not the only truck with this issue, I am replacing at least 2 sets a year in a fleet of 5 trucks. 

3 to 5 years on tractors which run nearly daily.  Normal for nowdays.  The big goofy one in our CIH tractos is 279 bucks.  Every 2000hr is toast.  Had tractor since sping 2020 (1800hr) and now has 8800hr on 3 rd set of new giant battery...  Or 4th?   Loaders hava 2 gp31 or 32... id reason 3 years is normal.  They get bounced imho and might crack inside.

Deka, Alaska Gold, Interstate, dont matter.  The cheap cheap are for sure worse but the big name brands really are all the same.  Local guru electrical shop sells Alaska Gold and swears by em.  I cannot tell you they really outlast interstates..

[TroyDairy]

7 hours ago, yellowrosefarm said:

Would a maintainer on a fire truck last past the first time someone forgot to unplug it going out on a call?  Or is that unlikely to ever happen?

Wow

Here all my fireman buddies say they are plugged in...the plug just pop out if the dont manually pull them off the heater and battery

 

Imho...the chargers maybe doing damage?  Just seems i have more fiddling with genset with chargers then other things with straight disconnect switch

[acem]

Overcharging, low charge state, high temperature, vibration, etc all can shorten battery life.

Battery life is often rated in cycles instead of time. If the battery is maintained near full charge (but not overcharged) and kept cool (engine compartments are hot in our summers) it will help it last longer time.

 

[vtfireman85]

21 hours ago, brahamfireman said:

You stated you're changing batteries in your truck, then later said you're replacing 2 sets a year in a fleet of 5, leads me to believe you are the fleet maintenance guy. If you are the designated maintenance guy for your fire dept,  sounds to me like management needs to let you do your job and not micro manage. If that's the game they want to play,  let them change the batteries. 

As far as life span, in the last 8 years we've replaced batteries in 1 engine in 2024, with whatever Napa ordered for us. I believe the new are DeKa and the old were over 10 years old. 

Do your trucks have auto battery tenders? All of ours are plugged into shore power at the hall and are equipped with auto maintainers,  they also all have master cut off switches to stop parasitic drains.

Often as not it’s either me or our assistant chief doing the actual switching. It’s usually him doing heavy maintenance because that’s what he does, his father is chief and they run an excavation company. So it often comes out down to “ I got a set of batteries, new bulbs, door latch, whatever, have you got time to go change it?” Currently they are going through trucks because they have time and the shop to do it in. 

[vtfireman85]

19 hours ago, yellowrosefarm said:

Would a maintainer on a fire truck last past the first time someone forgot to unplug it going out on a call?  Or is that unlikely to ever happen?

We run the air hose/cord through the mirror or door handle so you kind of have to unplug it before you can get in. We had one A-hole drive away with the airline once but that was a long time ago, he’s dead now. 

[New Englander]

I buy AGM batteries. That's what most new vehicles have now - can't spill, no adding water. Buy the top of the line, even Walmart's top. I don't have bad luck with batteries so I cannot justify Optima but they do have a great reputation. If you ever watched Jay Leno's garage every one of his 100+ cars has an Optima battery with a smart maintainer. Of course he's got very deep pockets.

Today's cars have smart charging systems. I don't know if they're really justified just as I don't think we need a body control module controlling your lights but, that's progress, I guess.

Cars have a lot of semi parasitic loads. The various computers and modules keep running for a time after shut down and draw some current. I suspect they're doing some sort of housekeeping like the central maintenance computer in our Falcons. They continued to run for three minutes after power down which was a PITA if you needed to reboot the plane because one of the sixty computers didn't start right. You needed to wait three minutes to restart everything. When we shut down for more that a few hours we'd wait the three minutes after battery masters off then disconnect the batteries which all have a quick disconnect. The only parasitic load that was supposed to remain was fire detection integrity monitoring but since it's so easy to disconnect we just did it. We had two of these big batteries. Lead acid throwaway instead of the expensive to maintain Ni-Cads in the older jets. 

 

[Gearclash]

2 hours ago, New Englander said:

I cannot justify Optima but they do have a great reputation.

For quite a few years now the real world opinion on Optima batteries has been tepid.  The consensus is that since they moved production out of the US they don't last like they used to.  

[brahamfireman]

23 hours ago, yellowrosefarm said:

Would a maintainer on a fire truck last past the first time someone forgot to unplug it going out on a call?  Or is that unlikely to ever happen?

With shore power the 120 cord plugs into a special outlet on the exterior of the truck,  as soon as vehicle is started the cord is auto ejected out of the socket.

Maintainers are hard wired into the vehicle, never removed, hidden under the hood, permanently wired to the shore power socket.

On edit, I see I'm 4 post late to the party......

[brahamfireman]

4 hours ago, vtfireman85 said:

Often as not it’s either me or our assistant chief doing the actual switching. It’s usually him doing heavy maintenance because that’s what he does, his father is chief and they run an excavation company. So it often comes out down to “ I got a set of batteries, new bulbs, door latch, whatever, have you got time to go change it?” Currently they are going through trucks because they have time and the shop to do it in. 

Prior to 2021 our chief was the "main" mechanic. In 2021 we got a guy on who worked for Cat and was good at maintenance, so I pushed for him to help because our chief was a busy guy. In 2022 I pushed for him to be a paid position and city council agreed so now we have an "official truck mechanic" who does the lighter things we can do in house.  I think he gets $500 a year,  so not budget breaking but at least "official"

It's something you might want to look into to streamline maintenance and keep people objective so there's no arguing over what's best and who to point fingers at when things don't work right. 

[vtfireman85]

1 hour ago, brahamfireman said:

Prior to 2021 our chief was the "main" mechanic. In 2021 we got a guy on who worked for Cat and was good at maintenance, so I pushed for him to help because our chief was a busy guy. In 2022 I pushed for him to be a paid position and city council agreed so now we have an "official truck mechanic" who does the lighter things we can do in house.  I think he gets $500 a year,  so not budget breaking but at least "official"

It's something you might want to look into to streamline maintenance and keep people objective so there's no arguing over what's best and who to point fingers at when things don't work right. 

That’d be cool, unfortunately there’s a very small pool of us to chose from. I may have misrepresented the nature of the relationship slightly. They are both close friends, like family, so most of my frustrations with the hard headed behavior is a lot like working with family. We all do our best to pick up slack, but out of 18 members on the roster maybe 8-9 are regularly there and maybe 4-5 of us are carrying most of the load of keeping the lights on. Everyone does what they can and what they have time for and I appreciate them all for what they do

[brahamfireman]

1 hour ago, vtfireman85 said:

That’d be cool, unfortunately there’s a very small pool of us to chose from. I may have misrepresented the nature of the relationship slightly. They are both close friends, like family, so most of my frustrations with the hard headed behavior is a lot like working with family. We all do our best to pick up slack, but out of 18 members on the roster maybe 8-9 are regularly there and maybe 4-5 of us are carrying most of the load of keeping the lights on. Everyone does what they can and what they have time for and I appreciate them all for what they do

We have 16 guys, 10 rigs, town of 1800. It's the same 6 guys running it all, so frustrating. 

[Dzldenny]

My experience is East Penn is the current manufacturer of choice. The local rebuilder for starters and alternators gave me some info. Manufacturers can sell their product to anyone to relabel as any brand name. Even Walmart batteries can be EP. Two batteries of the same series can be EP or not. Two visually identical batteries can be from different manufacturers. He told me to check the part number. Both batteries say group 35 for example. If the first digit is E it is an EP battery. Example Cxxxxxxxx not EP. Exxxxxxxxx EP battery. Same price. 

I have a Optima red top in my 7235 Cub Cadet. It was purchased new in 1996. Still going although cranks much slower now in cold weather than previously. I also have a red top purchased for a generator in 2021. It no longer takes a charge much less hold a charge.

Seems nothing of any brand is made to the standard of 5 or 10 years ago unfortunately.

[New Englander]

I needed 24 volt ground power so I took one battery I just changed out of caution and added a Walmart in series on a Harbor Freight dolly. The connector is a standard aircraft 24 volt DC that I’d made into a jumpstart years ago. When not using it on the plane I use its maintainer to keep it charged. Normally if I want to keep the avionics powered in the hangar I use this setup for external power. I also used it when the last battery went bad to crank the engine.

  

[vtfireman85]

7 hours ago, brahamfireman said:

We have 16 guys, 10 rigs, town of 1800. It's the same 6 guys running it all, so frustrating. 

It wears on you for sure. Then you end up with someone who’s worse than nobody and you wish you had less help. Vicious cycle. 

[sandhiller]

On 3/14/2026 at 8:12 AM, yellowrosefarm said:

Would a maintainer on a fire truck last past the first time someone forgot to unplug it going out on a call?  Or is that unlikely to ever happen?

Leave the hood up

I used a battery maintainer on the 7.3 diesel grass rig I kept at the ranch

The stud top batteries lasted 12 years when they got weak enough I replaced them

Now all the trucks in the fire hall have battery maintainers on them, hoods up, no one has ever driven off without unhooking first

If you don't want to leave the hood up, drape the extension cord over the drivers side mirror. 

[sandhiller]

12 hours ago, vtfireman85 said:

That’d be cool, unfortunately there’s a very small pool of us to chose from. I may have misrepresented the nature of the relationship slightly. They are both close friends, like family, so most of my frustrations with the hard headed behavior is a lot like working with family. We all do our best to pick up slack, but out of 18 members on the roster maybe 8-9 are regularly there and maybe 4-5 of us are carrying most of the load of keeping the lights on. Everyone does what they can and what they have time for and I appreciate them all for what they do

You have just described our small voluteer fire dept perfectly

We have 21 members that will crawl on a truck when the page goes off

10 at our monthly meeting is a good turnout

A small inner circle of maybe 5 guys do all the other things that keeps a fire dept viable including all maintenance, repairs and truck builds from grass rigs up to our 6x6's

We had a very good turn out with everyone doing a shift or more on the latest fire up here. 

[Matt Kirsch]

Think about it: You can still get those group 31's for $99 or $149. Been that price for years and years and years. $99 ain't worth near what it was even 5 years ago, let alone 10, or 20, or 50. Something's got to give. Battery manufacturers are not charities, in fact they are the diametrical opposite of charities.

[Jacka]

I would NEVER buy a name brand batteries if I can help it.They don't last any longer then any others and cost twice as much.I use Walmart if i cant get 2nds from a guy that gets outdated ones from Interstate. I get them at less than half the cost as new ones from him and thats the only reason I buy them.Deka dealer near me whom is a farmer and alternator/starter shop says DeKa will not warranty any in a tractor or offroad.On road is only a year.

I had some last for years most I get last 5 years or so average 

[yellowrosefarm]

2 hours ago, Matt Kirsch said:

Think about it: You can still get those group 31's for $99 or $149. Been that price for years and years and years. $99 ain't worth near what it was even 5 years ago, let alone 10, or 20, or 50. Something's got to give. Battery manufacturers are not charities, in fact they are the diametrical opposite of charities.

NAPA commercial 1000cca batteries are over $200 now

[Sledgehammer]

29 minutes ago, Jacka said:

I would NEVER buy a name brand batteries if I can help it.They don't last any longer then any others and cost twice as much.I use Walmart if i cant get 2nds from a guy that gets outdated ones from Interstate. I get them at less than half the cost as knew ones and thats the only reason I buy them.Deka dealer near me whom is a farmer and alternator/starter shop says DeKa will not warranty any in a tractor or offroad.On road is only a year.

I had some last for years most o get are 5 years or so average 

I've had the exact opposite luck with name brand batteries vs say the Walmart batteries. 

[Dave Shepard]

I paid $189 OTD for a Diehard (Deka) 1,000 cca at Carquest this winter. That's the heavy battery spec'd by Wood-Mizer for a high demand application. They go 4-5 years before they don't start in the first cold snap. 

[Chester5732]

Why complain about $200 if it’s a decent brand battery. Heck, for a decent dinner out with the wife it’s $50.