Battery Prices are Getting Ridiculous

nobody can compete with Walmart so recently I found myself in the market for a couple of car batteries both my 86 TransAm behind me and my 86 Camaro needed batteries now it's been a good amount of time since I've purchased a regular lead acid battery now keep in mind these three here I'm not trying to compare like apples to oranges these two are AGM batteries absorbed glass mat and this one is a lead acid I'm just kind of using them to make my point jump between the brands but I picked out a couple of these for my 2004 Tahoe they cost 200 bucks a pop that's probably close to 3 years at this point but once again it's an AGM battery I knew is going to be more expensive they always have been they've always been at least 50 to like 100% more expensive than just like a regular lead acid battery however that's not what I'm here to talk about today today we're just talking about the basic cheapy old as hell lead acid battery so what ended up happening was I had a uh everst start gold in my Camaro years ago and this was a great battery I had no problems with it the only reason I pulled it out is because when my Trans Am uh was getting closer to running and I started hooking some of the electronics up I pulled it out and I figured I'll just use this battery in this car and then I'll get a nice fancy AGM battery for the Camaro which is what I got right here this Dural as Platinum three 3 years later well 3 years and 8 months the duras Platinum is dead it is out of warranty so this one goes bye-bye as for this battery it was supposed to make its way in the Trans Am and it did I kind of tinkered with it had it in the car kind of just so I had accessory power when I was messing with some stuff however I never hooked it up to a trickle charger this car took longer to complete than I thought it's just been sitting in the garage for 2 years so it is completely dead and that is nobody's fault but mine so there we go both the trans them and the Camaro do not have batteries so that's where the Walmart ever start steps in again now when I started working as a mechanic it was at Sears you used to be able to get a battery like a mid-tier just regular lead acid battery for around I want to say 100 120 bucks that would be for a dieh hard gold it would come with a 5year warranty you'd get three years full replacement and then that goes wrong with the battery bring it back they'll give you another one they'll probably got to test it make sure it's bad but they'll just swap it out for new one within 3 years now on top of that they give you 2 years of pration so if that battery out at dur last 3 years and 8 months you bring the battery back and they'll PR rate that time and give you a decent amount of money to put towards another battery now granted as you get closer to that 5year period eventually you're really going to get nothing like when you're at pretty much 4 years and 364 days you'll probably only get a couple of bucks back but it was something it was pretty much there so if the battery failed right after the main replacement point you still get a decent amount of money to pick up another battery now first of all I want to start out by saying I'm not like brand dependent on any of these I don't care if Die Hard makes it Walmart makes it deras makes it I just want a battery that's fairly priced that's going to possibly make it to maybe 5 years like it it wasn't it still shouldn't be like a huge thing to try to get 5 years out of battery and I'm sure a lot of people probably have different experiences than mine um I'm sure probably get at least 5 years out of some of these batteries then a lot of people are also going to say this is crap this is crap this is crap so everybody has different experiences with batteries mine with Walmart on the other hand has been extremely good and if you look at the project Farm YouTube channel he actually did a very good comparison on car batteries and Walmart was one of the top batteries so there's something to it I don't think it's just me having good luck with these batteries they're made by Johnson Controls so it's not like Walmart's pumping these out in their basement I just don't know why these are so much cheaper than all the other brands because listen to this the Walmart EverStart this battery right here group 75 600 cold cranking amps cost me $70 70 bucks now it only has a oneyear full replacement warranty however they make another step up of this battery which cost 140 and that one comes with a 2-year warranty however onee warranty 70 2-year warranty 140 I figured why not just buy the cheap one even if this out after a year you can just go buy another one and it's like you spent the same amount of money for the 2-year warranty anyway now comparing this battery to the same offerings from Die Hard um from durest and Die Hard the prices are just like through the roof the warranty is better but I don't think it's really Justified so for example a basic dur last Red Top lead acid battery $195 plus core15 bucks compared to 7 you can almost buy three of these for the price of that basic duras battery now keep in mind the duras does have a three-year full replacement warranty and I know for some people that might be a thing where you know okay this one's 70 the duras Red Top cost 190 maybe the duras is just made better you drive in your car every day you don't want to have potentially the battery fail cuz it's cheap once again these are made by Johnson Controls don't know how batteries are made I know how they work I know what's inside of them but I'm not sure of the quality between Brands they could all be pumping out the same battery and just putting different stickers on them what I do know is I'm not spending $195 for a basic lead acid battery when I could go buy this one for 70 now Die Hard does the exact same thing they have their different tiers of batteries as well you got the silver uh which used to be the base battery but now they have one below that which is die hard it's like red so it goes red silver gold and then pla Platinum same thing with theirs their basic uh silver battery I think it's $194 once you get into the gold for both die hard and dur last still lead acid we're in the 200s I even tried going to Batteries and Bulbs nearby there's a few of them in Jersey cuz I figured it would be a huge battery store there'll be bunch of different brands I could uh choose from maybe I could get an AGM again maybe they won't be price too crazy every single car battery they sell in that store is a durac they're all Duracell and they wanted $25 for a group 75 duracel basic lead acid battery once again with a three-year warranty basic lead acid battery $25 what the hell is going on the funny thing is after that I decided to go to AAA which is in the same parking lot right next door and they wanted the same amount of money I know a lot of new cars they need to have AGM batteries for all the fancy Electronics all like the start stop um the safety features like the cameras and stuff they have if they need to have AG batteries and the battery technolog is getting more advanced so be it but a basic ass lead acid battery for my 86 Trans Am shouldn't cost $195 and coming back to maybe it's a uh build quality thing AutoZone does have cheaper more budget friendly batteries so below the durl as red top you get into value craft which I think they rename that to top Pro now and you can get one of them for $135 550 cold cranking amp so 50 less than this but you also get a one-year full replacement warranty so pretty much identical to the Walmart battery minus 50 cold cranking amps but that one comes in at $135 almost twice the price of the Walmart battery now on top of that they do have another brand even lower than to Total Pro now we're getting like to the low of the low value craft used to be at least to me like the kind of below the store brand that's like the really cheap budget probably going to fail sketchy crappy brand but now we're going below that we're going down to econocraft now you can get an econocraft battery with 650 gold cranking amp so now we're 100 over the the top Pro 50 more than this for 90 bucks so okay at least we're under a 100 bucks now the cheapest Budget Battery they have technically the shittiest battery costs $90 you think okay at least you know you still have a one-year warranty it's a little more expensive with the w than the Walmart but it's not terrible you get a thre Monon warranty nobody can compete with Walmart now I am in no means sponsored by Walmart be really nice but I am not this is just stuff that I have noticed over the years having five vehicles right now and using multiple brands of battery they all seem to be hit and miss there's no like top brand that's an incredible battery in my opinion even Walmart I'm not saying it's incredible it's the best battery it'll last you so freaking long they all average out probably lasting the same amount of time but if that's the case why spend $195 on a basic lead acid battery for your 30 40y old car when you just go to Walmart and pay the normal price for that type of battery and still get decent quality a decent warranty but that is my battery rant please feel free to leave your comments below what you think about batteries if there are experts out there who know more about battery construction and why they cost what they do why Walmart's getting away with murder charging like half the price of the competition I'd love to hear it because I really do my my Walmart batteries and I'm sure at some point they're not going to be $70 anymore it's probably going to happen but for now you know you need a battery I'd recommend the Walmart and uh let's actually go outside I just popped one of these a couple weeks ago in my Camaro exact same battery as I have on the table now that car has got a 6 L V8 with a supercharger on it let's go see how it starts up it's been sitting out in the weather in the 30 35 degree cold for the past couple of weeks come on look at that guy only the best for this girl let's see what we got here excuse the gauges they're never the most accurate but we got some voltage there let's give her a crank I gotta press the clutch why did I put a clutch switch in this car I never used to have one but the battery it's a good battery I promise oh never mind oh look at that come on look at that Oho she's popping yeah this car has been sitting a while the cheap $70 Walmart battery can start up this car without an issue

Channel: Lsxmatt

Views: 93,781

Keywords: car battery, batteries, agm, lead acid flooded, expensive, wet cell, why are batteries so much money, inflation, walmart batteries, diehard, duralast, acdelco, exide, deka, champion, interstate, johnson controls, walmart, everstart, start stop, new technology, new cars, modern, trans am, pontiac, thirdgen, 3rd gen, f body, ttops, ltx, lsa, camaro, iroc, 6.0, ls swap, boosted, budget battery

Id: U-3qp35DNIo

Length: 11min 21sec (681 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 27 2024