Dura-crap battery

As of today I am on my third Duralast battery for my Miata in less than a year. They keep leaking, not cool. I do have a brand-new one again, but my confidence level in it is zero.

I guess it is about time to order another Westco.

Pat

Reply to
pws
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This is a Duralast, which I think is both the name of the manufacturer and the battery? I have had great experiences with Duralast batteries in the past, but not for this car.

It also fits like the original, vent hoses and all, but my luck has not been good, obviously.

Pat

Reply to
pws

pat, apparently johnson controls makes duralast (autozone) as well as die hard (sears)...

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I think panasonic makes the miata westco agm battery... which explains why for the most part it is found to be dependable (note frank berger's reported bad experiences). ps. how are texans dealing with the snow? anything like this...
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Reply to
Christopher Muto

Leaking from where? The terminals? You cannot apply any torque to those posts, or hammer on them....it breaks the seal.

Chris

Reply to
Hal

Christopher, the cars on ice ping pong was great! Where in the heck was that?! Must have been a pretty serious incline on that road, eh?

Chris

99BBB
Reply to
Chris D'Agnolo

Reply to
Christopher Muto

Now that is funny. We have still not had any snow or ice in the Austin area this year as far as I know. The last time that happened was long ago, maybe 2006? That memory thing is fading fast.

Pat

Reply to
pws

The leak is coming from the vent hose attachment points, and it was doing the same thing a few months ago, that left a nice puddle in the trunk.

There was no torque or hammering on either battery, I even make sure to set them down pretty gently when I handle them.

Come to think of it, these are the only batteries I have had leak in 24 years of driving.

Pat

Reply to
pws

If I was not such a total weenie regarding cold weather I would have likely moved there by now. Time for a visit this summer, it is not too long until the Seattle Hempfest!

Pat

Reply to
pws

Are you sure your alternator is not over-charging and causing the electrolyte to boil out of the battery as a result? It just seems..odd..to have 3 batteries fail in the same manner.

It's a long shot but maybe check the voltage after the engine has been running for a few minutes just to be sure....?

Chris

Reply to
Hal

I have never checked the alternator.

I will check it out, that never occurred to me.

Thanks for the advice!

Pat

Reply to
pws

Bah. Seattle doesn't have cold weather.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

I know some people there who might beg to differ, but these are former Texans.......

The Washington State area is about the coldest place that I will consider, I just do not do well with large amounts of snow and ice.

Really, I also like a lot of skin-cancer inducing sunlight so the number of rainy/overcast days in the Pacific Northwest is a factor as well.

I can handle the insane Texas heat here in the summer, but I think that the first Minnesota winter would have me in really bad shape.

Pat

Reply to
pws

Wimps :) Average lows in Jan/Feb are well above freezing, and record lows are all above zero.

'nuf said.

I still laugh when I recall an international corporate sales and training event held in Minneapolis in late January a few years back (I was involved in setting up some of the demo/training hardware). There were several guys from Central and South America who'd never been anywhere cold before. As luck would have it, they arrived in the middle of a cold snap with low temps of -15 to -20 and high temps well below zero.

(At least it's usually sunny when it's that cold.)

Some of them arrived without real coats or mittens. They seemed a bit stunned -- to say the least. Then the hotel lost power for most of a day so there was no training sessions or meetings and absolutely nothing to do unless they went out into the cold to try their hand and winshield-scraping and winter driving.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

Indeed. Their hummingbirds don't even migrate, but stick around all winter.

Reply to
Lanny Chambers

We did have some 15 to 17 degree weather recently for a whole day or two. I think it was a record-setter for central Texas. The relatively low temperature killed a lot of plants, but no ice this time.

That is funny! A friend of mine lives in northern Minnesota and comes down here for a couple of months every winter.

He drives a motorcycle and likes to get away from the worst of it, but he would never stay here in the summer.

We had over 30 days of 100+ degree temperatures in the daytime not that long ago and it never got below 82 or so at night. I had no air conditioner in my car and did a lot of night driving that summer.

That level of heat starts to get miserable, though I expect XS11E to come in with a "what a wimp" statement for not being able to handle what he considers to be perfect weather. :-)

Pat

Reply to
pws

Is this where a lot of them migrate to? I don't know if it is fact, but I read a newspaper article which stated that Texas has more varieties of hummingbird than any other U.S. state.

Pat

Reply to
pws

When on my motorcycle I always wear a full-face-helmet, gloves, boots, and heavy leather jacket. I don't think I'd be able to ride much in weather like that.

Definitely. I can put up with a bit of heat in the desert, but I can't stand muggy. And the parts of Texas I've spent time in (mainly around Houston and the gulf coast), defintely qualified as muggy. Spending a few August days out in the Gulf coast sun wearing Nomex coveralls was enough Texas for me...

I guess it's good somebody likes the weather there, or we'd be awfully short on petroleum products.

Reply to
Grant Edwards

XS11E hails from the Phoenix area.

Austin is not as muggy as the coastal areas tend to be, but the humidity is high enough. Our best days are often during November through February, but it has been colder than normal this winter. I hope that some of that cooler weather pushes through to the summer, but I am not counting on it.

I was out in 70 degree weather under clear blue sky last week, and iirc, my birthday at the 1st part of December was also very nice. It's not all bad, especially for someone who hates snow, I just wish I had a summer home in a cooler climate, or that this was only my home during the winter, either way to avoid the extremes.

Yeah, I'm a wimp. If I could afford it I would live somewhere like St. Thomas, U.S.V.I., That is perfect weather to me.

Pat

Reply to
pws

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