Interstate Battery Failure

Thanks for the heads up.

Andy,

I have an Interstate 8D and 2 series connected Interstate golf carts in parallel for the house bank of my single engine trawler, but other than that, I have no reason to be particularly for or against Interstate batteries. In the marine environment, there are MANY external factors that can drastically shorten the life of flooded lead acid batteries.

The fact that you have had so many failures in s short battery life time is a real head-scratcher. How are the batteries used and connected? Did they fail to crank the engines (high amperage - short duration load) or fail to hold a charge (lower amperage - long duration house bank type load)? Any engine alternator issues or other changes to the 12V system around February 2014?

The primary reason flooded lead acid batteries fail prematurely is repeated deep discharges/recharges. I suggest you check the possibly that something in your 12V electrical has failed or become disconnected or some component has been replaced and rewired incorrectly. Some things to check - engine alternator excitation lead wrongly connected directly to battery. This will fully discharge an 8D battery in a few days. House bank loads left energized with assumption that the shore charger is charging them when in fact they are discharging, and recharged only when the engine alternators are back on line. Battery combiners are notorious for masking these problems. It is possible (IMHO likely) that the real problem(s) led to the premature failures of the Delco batteries you replaced the Interstate ones with.

$800.00 for 4 8D batteries is very inexpensive - last time I priced a Crown 8D was $400.00 each, IIRC, if you can buy them where you live. I have Crown golf cart batteries in my large inverter bank - they can't be beat. I don't believe you will find the Walmart batteries superior to the Intestates. Hope this was of some help.

Joe

"I should also note that I was in the marine business for 10 years and among various boat repair jobs, I installed and maintained customers batteries in their boats."

That right there tells me all I need to know, an "expert" working on other people's boats. I have run across too many "experts" in the marine environment. Obviously no clue.

Interstate does have a marine division. By the fact these were not warrantied I'd have to assume they were not from that division and not marine batteries. Is that correct? As to you buying the best batteries they made, you clearly did not buy the best they make for a marine application.

It also sounds to me like you have something else going on. you had four batteries to fail within two months of each other, although many people would have recommended replacing the entire bank together. Now you've had four more to fail less than 18 months later.

While obviously I can't be sure of what has happened, I fully understand their refusing to accept responsibility. You want them to warrant batteries used for a marine application that weren't intended for such and that they specifically told you wouldn't be warrantied. On top of that the circumstances indicate a problem other than the batteries. If you haven't addressed any other issues, then I'd expect you to have another failure within the next two years.

You've come on here yelling and blasting Interstate and I also have no ties whatsoever to them, but nothing you've posted here would make me hesitate to do business with them.

Interstate's marine batteries do have warranties. Their AGM Marine Batteries have 3 year warranties. Their M Group of starting batteries have 12 months. Their ECL series has 18 months.

The warranty you didn't get on the Interstate Commercial 8D-MHD would have been for 6 months ...now what do we do?

$200 wet cell 8D's in a marine application are 24 month batteries anyway.

My last set of of NAPA 8D's (two each on mains, one for electronics) lasted seven years. One batt finally developed bad cell so replaced the lot. Not bad for a $200 8D.

I have to chime in here....I have used Interstate batteries exclusively in my boats (and cars) for 20+ years and I regularly get 6-7 years out of all of them consistently. I'm not sure what happened to the OP's batteries but it is possible that they were all from a bad batch, especially since they were purchased only 4-8 weeks apart and maybe even at the same location, so they could easily have all come from the same batch. I have had such excellent luck with the brand for so long that I haven't really considered anything else, so I hate to hear that someone has had such a bad experience with the exact same product that I regularly use and recommend.

I know that many folks like using AGM batteries these days and while I can certainly appreciate the low maintenance, I simply cannot justify the fact that AGM's cost 2-3 times as much just to have lower maintenance. If they would last at least twice as long as lead-acid batteries the cost might be able to be justified but they are not lasting anywhere near 12-14+ years so I just buy the Interstate 8D-MHD's. Priced just under $200, the 8D-MHD it is the most bang for the buck that I know of.

"all four failing almost the same time" might be a bad batch indeed. Might also be an indicator of some kind of external problem affecting the whole bank. A latent defect in charger, wiring, or even some kind of mechanical problem, such as being subjected to stress or impact on the run? A lot to check out.