07-01-2015, 08:43 PM
I generally buy Procells from reputable suppliers like CPC - I stock up when they are on offer. They are astonishingly cheap when you compare them to the high-street price of Duracells. Yes, they can leak when exhausted, but I don't know if Procells are any worse than any other alkaline battery in this regard; either way it's no hardship to keep an eye on them. For high-value items, like radios or DMMs, I'm in the habit of removing the batteries if I'm not using them (yes, I have a DMM collection 
)
Regarding car batteries, we've been extremely lucky with our current cars. My wife's 2003 Fiesta still has the original battery, and my 2001 Focus had the original battery until relatively recently. The garage had been warning me that it was getting "low" - whatever that actually means - for a few years, and I finally let them change it one year when the service had been a modest one. The Focus hardly gets used these days - I do about 2,000 miles a year in that car - so the battery was probably fed up with being ignored!
I think they've done pretty well. Both cars have heated front screens which take many 10s of amps - much more than a rear screen - and we do mostly short journeys that batteries don't like (in theory, at least). The batteries are calcium types - when replacing, don't skimp and use regular lead-acid types. Calcium types are able to withstand over-charging, which the alternator can do under control of the ECU if it decides it's needed. I'm out of touch with cars these days, so have no idea if other manufacturers do this, or if this is unique to Ford.
Our local Ford dealer does the genuine Ford batteries at half-price, which makes them about the same price as a "premium" regular lead-acid battery from Halfords et al. They do this to encourage their customers to fit the correct type, which I think is decently far-sighted of them - when I first researched mine, I found nothing but complaints on the forums, written by folk who had fitted regular batteries that had only lasted a year or two at best. Before this point, I had no idea that the calcium types existed...
The battery in my previous car - a VW Golf - lasted just 3 or 4 years. I must say that I was disappointed with that. The battery was a Bosch type, and I would have expected much better than that. Goes to show that brand can only indicate so much - there is a sizeable element of luck with anything, irrespective of the marketing...
)Regarding car batteries, we've been extremely lucky with our current cars. My wife's 2003 Fiesta still has the original battery, and my 2001 Focus had the original battery until relatively recently. The garage had been warning me that it was getting "low" - whatever that actually means - for a few years, and I finally let them change it one year when the service had been a modest one. The Focus hardly gets used these days - I do about 2,000 miles a year in that car - so the battery was probably fed up with being ignored!
I think they've done pretty well. Both cars have heated front screens which take many 10s of amps - much more than a rear screen - and we do mostly short journeys that batteries don't like (in theory, at least). The batteries are calcium types - when replacing, don't skimp and use regular lead-acid types. Calcium types are able to withstand over-charging, which the alternator can do under control of the ECU if it decides it's needed. I'm out of touch with cars these days, so have no idea if other manufacturers do this, or if this is unique to Ford.
Our local Ford dealer does the genuine Ford batteries at half-price, which makes them about the same price as a "premium" regular lead-acid battery from Halfords et al. They do this to encourage their customers to fit the correct type, which I think is decently far-sighted of them - when I first researched mine, I found nothing but complaints on the forums, written by folk who had fitted regular batteries that had only lasted a year or two at best. Before this point, I had no idea that the calcium types existed...
The battery in my previous car - a VW Golf - lasted just 3 or 4 years. I must say that I was disappointed with that. The battery was a Bosch type, and I would have expected much better than that. Goes to show that brand can only indicate so much - there is a sizeable element of luck with anything, irrespective of the marketing...
