FWIW, I put two Interstate batteries in my '08 Mustang--almost daily
driven over 70 miles on the freeway--and they both failed at 2 years (no
warning, just wouldn't start my car at work). Interstate used to be a
'go to' brand, but I believe they're now made in Mexico like most
'American' brands. An experienced starter/generator rebuilder told me
Mexican-made batteries are crap (and he's Hispanic). Deka is now my go
to brand; they're made in Pennsylvania, and competitively priced.
My guess is your Interstate is getting ready to fail.
Bob
On 4/7/2020 7:34 AM, Jimmie Mayfield via Shop-talk wrote:
> The recent discussion about solar-powered float chargers has reminded
> me of an issue that I've yet to understand or resolve...
>
> I have a Battery Minder 12248 (12V 2/4/8A) charger/de-sulfator with
> temperature compensation sensor. While I've never been able to
> appreciably restore a dead UPS battery using the de-sulfation mode, it
> seems to work fine as a slow charger. It has several modes --
> gel-cell, AGM or flooded -- which, near as I can tell, adjusts the
> threshold voltage at which the charger switches from bulk-charge mode
> to float-charge/de-sulfation mode.
>
> Every 12V battery that I've ever connected to the charger, even the
> old AGM batteries taken out of my UPS units, eventually reached the
> threshold voltage and switched over to float mode (usually within
> 30-45 minutes for a nearly-fully-charged battery). Except one.
>
> About 2 years ago I installed an Interstate battery from Costco (size
> 27F, 890CA, 710CCA) in my truck. It's a flooded battery and if I
> understand Interstate's spec correctly, its capacity works out to
> around 100Ah. The battery has a resting voltage of 12.6V so it
> doesn't appear to have any shorted cells and has no trouble starting
> my truck. So it seems to be a normally healthy battery, right?
>
> Thing is...I've never seen my charger go into float mode when
> connected to this battery even when it was nearly new. With the
> recent pandemic stay-at-home orders, yesterday I decided to connect my
> truck to the charger to stave off parasitic drain (measured to be
> 20-30mA) that may have accumulated over the past week of inactivity.Â
> I'm currently at 16 hours (@4A) and it still seems to be in
> bulk-charging mode. I have difficulty believing that the battery
> needed 50+ Ah.
>
> So what's going on here? This is the only battery that I've come
> across that behaves like this.
>
>
>
>
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