Where is the best place to buy a car battery
Need a New Car Battery? How to Choose the Right Type
rev up your engines, eventually car batteries go bad, how do you decide how
to buy the right one for your car, now years ago when I was young,
batteries didn't cost much, you could get up for 35 bucks it was no big deal
picking out a battery, but these days it is a pretty big deal, look at the prices,
they're not giving them away, so I'm going to give you a little battery lesson,
when I was a kid, we had batteries naked, they were vacuum sealed, we break the
vacuum seal, then fill them with acid when a customer needed a battery, and
they were vacuum sealed for a reason, they had an indefinite shelf life that
way, today at the factory, they're filled with acid, so they start to deteriorate
the minute they're built and the acid is put in, now filling the batteries with acid
at the factory is not a good idea because they start to deteriorate, and in
this case, if you look closely, you can see this one is made in Korea, so filled it
with acid in Korea, then they ship it on a boat here to the United States,
it can take a long time between it being made and you actually install it in your
car, I've seen that particular brand of battery
sometimes they last a year or two and that's it, because of this, in a sense
batteries are kind of like eggs, now all batteries are dated, this is an
easy one to read, it just says 8/13, so it was made 8 of 13, so when you're
buying a battery, look at the date and don't buy one that's more than one or
two months old, because it's deteriorated, so you want to buy your batteries from
the place that sells a lot of batteries, now don't be fooled by some of these chain
stores, where they have a pyramid of batteries sitting there, some of those
batteries are in that pyramid for months, and they're not going to last long, so
always check the date of your battery, then comes the question, should you buy a
battery that has a removable top where you can add battery water, or should get
a sealed one that you can't add battery water too, now this decision depends on
you, because if you're the type of person that's never going to check the battery
water, buy one of the sealed batteries, of course they're not perfectly sealed, they
still have vents to vent some gas, but the smaller vents, so they'll lose water
a lot slower than a non sealed battery, but
they will eventually run out of battery acid inside, then you got to replace the
battery, the open style batteries, they got tops you can take off, and you can look
inside and check the water level, so if you're diligent like me, you can add
distilled water when it gets low, and these batteries will actually last
longer, but if you aren't diligent, they'll last a shorter time, so that
depends on you, whether you're going to check the water or not, now there are
other types of batteries out there you can use it lasts a really long time, like
I have in my motorcycle here, it has a lithium iron battery, not lithium-ion but
lithium iron phosphate, now it's an entirely
electronic battery, with no acid in it at all, and it's about 100 bucks and it
works great in a motorcycle, but due to manufacturing process and economy of
scale, the ones for cars cost a whole bunch of money and generally only racers
use them, because here's a lithium iron phosphate battery for a car, and it
starts at six hundred and twenty dollars, so odds are you're going to be buying a
conventional battery for your vehicle, but if your vehicle comes with a more
modern battery like this absorbed glass mat battery, it is a good idea to still
use an absorbed glass mat battery when it's time to replace it, because your
charging system was designed for such a battery, these batteries do cost a little
bit more, but they still have acid in them and the same rules for buying them
applies as with regular water acid batteries, so the next time your car
battery goes bad, you know how to replace it, more quick fixes on the Scotty Kilmer
Channel, so if you never want to miss another one
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