INTERSTATE BATTERIES

My last set of Excides lasted 7 years of heavy use. Now battery warehouse doesnt sell Excide labeled batteries. They sell Excide manufactured batteries that arent labeled as Excide. I was told by an 'expert' that they use a little bit cheaper lead in them. I have a set that is going on year 3 without any issues. I think mine are GC 145.

I was a loyal Interstate user for many years. I had an issue with the last set that I purchased in not being able to get the specific gravity of the electrolyte to come up. I tried four different battery chargers in an attempt to determine if charging/chargers was the problem. My sales rep did a great job of working with me to try to resolve the problem. He really was fantastic and went above and beyond the call to try to help me out. He even included me in on the conference call with interstate so I could hear their position. And he took care of me even when they (interstate) said they would not. Despite all of his efforts, the replacements were not any better and last season I switched to another brand. And guess what? No problems.

Having fished the reservoirs for over twenty years now, I have noticed that this is not really uncommon. I have noticed almost all brands of batteries experience an ebb and flow in their dependability/durability at some point in time. It must be based upon their changes in design or changes they make to produce better results for different applications of the batteries from time to time. After all, certain characteristics that make a deep cycle battery a stellar performer for a golf cart does not necessarily coincide with what we are looking for to power our reservoir boats. Unfortunately for us, we don't know about those changes until after we spend our money to find out.

And with the cost of those rascals now, that makes it a very tough (and unpleasant) way to find out.

A pic says it all . . . My INTERSTATES are date-coded 3/12. So they are less than 1 year old. This is my 1st time experiencing with INTERSTATES. I went to charge my batteries the other day and my charger wouldn't come on. At the beginning of my troubleshoot I began to jiggle some wiring and jumpers looking for a loose connection. I came across 1 wire that when I jiggled it I noticed the whole battery post moving, UH-OH! So, I started to jiggle that wire a bit more and what you see in the pic is what I found. Obviously, with the batteries being less than a year old I was not happy. So, I went to where I purchased the batteries from and after a "little" kickback INTERSTATE did eventually replace my battery.