Best place to get truck batteries

I just picked up 4 of these in December, X2Power Premium AGM 1150CCA BCI Group 31T Heavy Duty Battery - SLI31AGMDP
I have had terrible issues with frozen batteries and just bad luck in the winter all together with batteries the last couple winters. when I brought my other ones in for core (napa brand) 2 of them were frozen already and it was barely below zero a couple times and like 30 out when I brought them in and they were already bricks/ The down side to agm is the initial cost is bad it was around $1600 for 4 but I was sick of dealing with batteries and they have a 4 year 100% warranty so if I get 4 winters out of these I actually come out ahead from what I have been dealing with so far. They are also deep cycle which is huge if you run other things off your truck batteries, they don't draw down near as quick and with 1150 cca they always crank over my truck stronger than I thought was possible. AGM's have a different charging profile then regular lead acid batteries I throw them on a agm charger if my truck sits over the weekend, I also have a new alternator that is supposed to fit the charging profile better. If you live in the north I would take a hard look at agm, if you don't have to deal with freezing issues a good set of strong lead acid will probably be good, but right now I am sold on these

 

In general I have had the best dollars to years of service from rexx battery (used to be discount battery) in Springfield il.
I have had cheap batteries last forever and high dollar ones eat it early on, generally no solid trends. I just figure buy something half decent and live with it they will all fail at the worst possible time guaranteed. Walmart batteries if and only if they are made by Johnson controls have also done me well.

 

I'm a fan of O'rielly Super Start AGM batteries 225 a piece here in Arizona ... unless you have an account or sweet talk the counter person for a discount. Usually have to call a day or 2 ahead so they have 4 in stock of similar manufacture date.

Super Start are made in the USA by East Penn Deka .... Johnson Controls makes most other batteries from Walmart to Interstate, all made in Mexico, all spec'd by the customer from cheap to expensive.

I have had no luck with "inexpensive" truck dealer batteries. Arizona cooks them, Northern states freeze them, the plates are thin and ####ty. I've had 2 trp batteries dead short in the past 6 years.

 

For 1600 bucks you could get three 1.8kwh silicate salt gel 8 year batteries

 

Or it was $500 for 4 that last maybe a year (if you are really lucky up here) and 6months warranty on them that my local napa wouldn't even talk about after my 3rd one froze and on top of that having to deal with taking out batteries every time it gets -20 out and getting new ones. I haven't had to deal with one battery issue despite it sitting for 4 days when the lows were -24 one weekend and that's Fahrenheit not Celsius. So I think that $1500 came cheap, no down time, being able to not idle my truck no matter what, they will pay for themselves with fuel prices.

 

They don't have the starting power needed, I also have 4 not 3 of the AGM I looked at that option but ruled it out because of the starting power you need

 

How about two group 31 lithium batteries ? They have an 80% depth of discharge without damage and less than half the weight per unit. Realistically it only needs 2 lithium to replace 4 AGM which would be 1/4 the weight approx..

Most are also good for 3,000+ full depth of discharge cycles VS about 250-400 with anything lead acid AGM or flooded..

 

I use Napa Commercial. I buy a set of 4 every 8 years.

 

Lithium batteries cold performance is not good, you can get batteries that use a heater to keep them warm, but anything under 32 degrees and they suffer. Ive tried them in a camper and an ice fishing set up and they are not good in the cold, if I was in a awarm weather climate I would be all over them just for weight savings alone but in the cold they are not good