Car Batteries in Consumer Reports

Joined
Mar 21, 2004
Messages
29,553
Location
Near the beach in Delaware
The summary: best overall was NAPA Legend Performance, good deal for cold climates was Walmart EverStart MAXX, and easy to check battery level was Interstate Mega-Tron Plus. The full review is online.
 
Last edited:
Not surprising that the best overall was an East Penn-and I've had decent luck with JC made WM EverStart Maxx & Interstate MTPs-but after having a couple JC batteries leak acid like sieves and not be warrantable for it, I'm never spending more than $50 on another JC made one!
 
They want a membership to read the whole article. Im surprised Napa won, Ive had a few fail considerably earlier under warranty than the Interstates I stock. did they test Bosch and the new ones from Delco?
 
Originally Posted by Audios
They want a membership to read the whole article. Im surprised Napa won, Ive had a few fail considerably earlier under warranty than the Interstates I stock. did they test Bosch and the new ones from Delco?

How long ago did you have the napa ones fail?
 
Originally Posted by Audios
They want a membership to read the whole article. Im surprised Napa won, Ive had a few fail considerably earlier under warranty than the Interstates I stock. did they test Bosch and the new ones from Delco?


If you have a library card, check their site and see if they have it online. Most libraries have access to CR.
 
Originally Posted by csandste
Originally Posted by Audios
They want a membership to read the whole article. Im surprised Napa won, Ive had a few fail considerably earlier under warranty than the Interstates I stock. did they test Bosch and the new ones from Delco?


If you have a library card, check their site and see if they have it online. Most libraries have access to CR.


+1. My library also has access to Chilton repair online
 
The most recent one was over the summer, 20 months on a legend in an 07 Jeep. It was a few years ago when it was more common, but their pricing keeps me away since.
 
I've boycotted JCI for a while. I've been happy with the Deka and Exide batteries I've been using.
 
Originally Posted by Pelican
I've heard that CR has a bias toward those who "Contribute" to their research. I take their reports with a handful of salt.


Where did you hear that? As far as I know, no one contributes to them as they don't do any advertising as their funding comes from readers. There's a few other consumer reporting magazines that do without that name so you may be confused with something else.

They have their own bias, but it's not from those who contribute as I believe there are no contributors besides their readers. Their bias might be from the group that buys their magazines.
 
Currently looking at a Duracell from Sam's. I always bought Costco for years. But they had to change the batteries and the warranty. All of Costco's are now Interstate. Sam's are currently East Penn.
 
Originally Posted by Pelican
I've heard that CR has a bias toward those who "Contribute" to their research. I take their reports with a handful of salt.


People like me who wanted to be educated consumers contribute. Magazine subscription, sweepstakes, etc. They accept no advertising and will not let their reports be used by companies as part of advertising. You may disagree with their testing methods or criteria, but their integrity is beyond reproach.
 
Consumer Reports 🤣 I no longer buy anything based on their reviews. Walmart Everstart Maxx (JCI) 🤣🤣🤣, I've had two over a four year period. JUNK! They always rate Behr paint as a top performer, not so much. I bought a Maytag dishwasher (pre-Whirlpool) based on their rating. JUNK! I've bought tires based on their ratings. JUNK! I am no longer a subscriber. For me, Consumer Reports ain't fit to line a birdcage. Although, NAPA being an East Penn is a good battery.
 
Last edited:
Originally Posted by bullwinkle
Not surprising that the best overall was an East Penn-and I've had decent luck with JC made WM EverStart Maxx & Interstate MTPs-but after having a couple JC batteries leak acid like sieves and not be warrantable for it, I'm never spending more than $50 on another JC made one!


As far as Walmart batteries go the ones I have looked at recently no longer have a mfg name on them. But, if the battery serial number starts with an "EP" then it was made by East Penn. The ones in MA stores I looked at started with an EP. Other parts of the country could be different. East Penn confirmed the EP prefix info in an email response to my question.
 
I subscribed to consumer report a couple of years ago,but got tired of almost weekly mailings trying to get me to subscribe again. Barely get 1 issue and they are begging to subscribe again when I have 11 months to go before expire
 
Originally Posted by Donald
Originally Posted by Pelican
I've heard that CR has a bias toward those who "Contribute" to their research. I take their reports with a handful of salt.


People like me who wanted to be educated consumers contribute. Magazine subscription, sweepstakes, etc. They accept no advertising and will not let their reports be used by companies as part of advertising. You may disagree with their testing methods or criteria, but their integrity is beyond reproach.

Their testing methods are often junk. I'm pretty sure any testing engineer for an oil company or automaker would look at their testing procedures and conclude they do stuff that makes absolutely no sense. I remember years ago seeing their reviews on bicycles, where they had some oddball testing criteria for "coasting efficiency" where they had a rider sit on a bike and see how fast it took to descend. There were way too many variables that could affect it, and it basically ignored the issue of break in time with bearings, where new bearings generally need to be adjusted. Even then it was about the least scientific and worthless test I could imagine.

I don't think they can be bought, but their methods leave doubt to their conclusions.
 
Doesn't CR point out instances where the 'items' they're reviewing are the same underneath but with a different brand name slapped on it ? They would do this with refrigerators, washers/dryers, etc in the past. Car batteries are generally no different. They don't point out that battery A and B are produced by manufacturer X, have identical specs, etc, etc and are just re-badged ? Even if they aren't 100% certain they're identical, I can still see them pointing out the similarities.
 
Originally Posted by Donald
Originally Posted by Pelican
I've heard that CR has a bias toward those who "Contribute" to their research. I take their reports with a handful of salt.


People like me who wanted to be educated consumers contribute. Magazine subscription, sweepstakes, etc. They accept no advertising and will not let their reports be used by companies as part of advertising. You may disagree with their testing methods or criteria, but their integrity is beyond reproach.

Haha ! Pretty much true. In the 80s, 90s, etc I'll bet they had very few "contributors" that owned Chryslers, GMs, and so on but had lots of Honda, Toyota, etc owners. I remember one time at work some of were looking at the yearly summary of cars and how they ranked. Personally, I drove a Honda Prelude that ranked pretty good at the time too. A co-worker had bought a Pontiac Trans Sport about a week earlier and asked if he could look at it when we were done. I knew about these models and politely said "you would have been better off reading this before you bought yours!".
 
Originally Posted by Pelican
I've heard that CR has a bias toward those who "Contribute" to their research. I take their reports with a handful of salt.

Well it must be true then if you "heard" it....

Their contributors are those who submit reliability data and more importantly, pay for the magazine. Do people with "junk" go to the trouble of subscribing and/or filling out reliability surveys ? Probably not. Most people just like to whine and complain but do nothing in the end. On the other hand, it would seem that people who are happy with their purchase do make the effort to contribute. That alone could skew their data but I doubt CR has hundreds of thousands of submissions from, say, Honda Accord owners, but only 385 submissions from Jeep Wrangler owners and publish that data as statistically accurate.
 
I will agree that Consumer Reports subscribers probably do not accurately represent the American population. Probably better educated and higher income. I mean if you are barely scraping by, you will not spend $27 on the magazine. But it's in the library.

The only thing they get from subscribers is reliability information. They do all the actual testing themselves or contracted to other labs possibly if a test required expensive equipment or extensive knowledge not available at Consumer Reports.
 
Back
Top