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Re: NEVER BUY WALMART'S BATTERIES OR YOU WILL BE SORRY

"Tom" wrote in news:ff1e3n$qk8$ snipped-for-privacy@aioe.org:

> I bought one of their batteries a few days ago, I had never opened its > seal nor used it. I later discovered that my other battery in my car > is fine, something was wrong with my car's charging system. Any way, > I thought I wouldn't be needing this new battery, now I am stuck with > their battery.

So THEY should be responsible for YOU performing incorrect diagnosis on your electrical problems?

> One more thing to keep in mind, their EverStart batteries (black > color) had jumpy Current flow, its Current+Voltage will jump from > 12.80v to 13.76v, also to 15.45volts,

System running voltage is determined by the alternator, not the battery.

Also, many Hondas have an Electrical Load Detector which can go bad, leading to fluctuating system voltage.

this will affect your Fuel Pump > meter, you will get fluctuated Fuel level reading, because the fuel > pressure depends on how hard the pump is doing its work. > > This is another reason why you should avoid buying from Wal-Mart no > matter what they said. Their technicians will lied to you to get you > to buy their low quality batteries, it costs me more troubles and > good. Be ware. >

We have a Wal-Mart battery in our Tercel. It's fine. This particular Wal-Mart battery was actually made by Eveready.

Reply to
Tegger
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I'm not going to go into tearing apart Tom's statements. I think that has been done well enough.

Years ago I bought a car with a walmart battery, and it lasted for about two years after I bought the car. This was definitely my fault since the car was only driven about once every two weeks at it's most frequent times, and once every two or three months at others. I didn't know about trickle chargers then... Since the prorate wasn't quite up I went to them for the replacement. They made it easy to exchange it, gave me a credit towards the new one, and since then I have bought batteries from them for three cars. Only once have I had to replace a battery before the warranty period was up (In that case it failed at

22 months into a two year free-replacement warranty.) They just had me grab a new one off the shelf, did about one minute of paperwork, and I was out the door with no exchange of money. I have to say that I am very happy with their batteries/battery service.

I've chosen to stay with them despite the fact that I won't buy anything else from the store because of their horrble environmental and labor records. I stick with them simpy because their battteries are satisfactory, their exchange service works, and most importantly, I can find a walmart virtually anywhere that I might be traveling. That is something that I used to like about Sears. However, now many Sears do not have an automotive department, so sadly they have lost my business. I still buy my hand tools there though because of how great their replacement warranty is. I've ony had to use it twice, but it is great peace of mind.

Have a great day, Bill

Reply to
weelliott

Actually that was an important point. A battery replacement warranty is almost always useless because when you suddenly need one you have to buy it where you are.

I was in Cape May with my cousin, who owns a nice expensive Lexus. The car wouldn't start so we called the AAA. The truck comes and it turns out that the almost new Lexus battery has a bad cell. The AAA folks now have a very thorough tester. He gives us the printout saying what is wrong.

But we need a battery now and there is no Lexus dealer closer than Atlantic City. So we buy the battery from the AAA guy. He tests that one, and it's bad. It seems that anyone can have a bad cell in a battery. The next one is fine.

So my cousin vows to get Lexus to give him back money. I'll have to check but I doubt they'll do that. On the other hand, my cousin is very persuasive.

Moral: any battery can go bad. When you need to replace it, you buy one from whoever has one.

Reply to
dgk

On Oct 17, 7:55 am, dgk wrote: ..Actually that was an important point. A battery replacement warranty is almost always useless because when you suddenly need one you have to buy it where you are.

My current battery has a color indicator, green for good, yellow for check/add water and red or clear (i can't recall) maybe when it turns yellow I'll buy a new battery. (depending on the age of my battery)

..Moral: any battery can go bad. When you need to replace it, you buy one from whoever has one.

good point, I will keep that in mind when I buy a replacement, I'll ask them if a new battery bought from another store is reimbursable if the dead one is still under warranty. That never occurred to me, all of my batteries died months after the warranty period.

Reply to
EdV

How long is the warranty?

DAS

For direct replies replace nospam with schmetterling

Reply to
Dori A Schmetterling

And some retailers WANT that battery to fail right at the end of the pro-rate warranty period - because to get your 5% or

10% pro-rate refund you have to come back to /their/ store and buy the new battery from them, usually at full list price. Cha-Ching!

Oh, and while you're here we did a 'Courtesy Safety Check', and your tires look a bit low on tread, the fan belts look pretty bad, and that shock absorber is leaking oil, and... Double Cha-Ching!

If he bagged up the bad battery and brought it back home with him, he's got a good chance at a refund. He can plop the bad battery on the parts counter as irrefutable proof.

If the "evidence" is gone, he may have a fight on his hands - and then he has to decide if it's worth $400 of his time fighting to get $100 back from the eventual warranty claim.

Sometimes it's better to cut your losses.

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Reply to
Bruce L. Bergman

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