OT- NAPA vs AC Delco battery

Hi, I need a new battery for my Ford 3500 diesel. It takes a 4DLT type battery. For about the same price (~$190), I can get a NAPA or an AC Delco battery. The Delco battery has a warranty of 30 months (free replacement within 6 months), whereas the NAPA battery only warrants for 12 months. Any opinions on which battery is best? I thought the Delco battery was more durable, and read somewhere of stories of problems with NAPA batteries internals sometimes shorting over time.. maybe related to vibration. You think one is better than the other, or just get the NAPA with a longer warranty?
Thanks
 
Your post is confusing,doe's the Napa battery or the Delco battery have the longer warranty? All
battery's are made by two or three manufactures to that company's specs.,I think Delco or Interstate
makes a better battery but just my opinion.
 
Sorry, think I wrote it backwards. The AC DELCO warranty is only 12 months. The NAPA battery is 30 month warranty. Thanks
 
I think NAPA batteries are Exide and Delcos or Johnson Controls.

BOTH companies make decent batteries.
 
I don't know your opinion of Duracell, but their 4DLT is available from Sam's club for $140. 12 month exchange, but no prorating.
 
I really like the warranty Auto zone has on their high end car batteries. They even store when you
bought battery in their computer in case you lose your paper work. As for me, I use cheap excide
batteries in my gas tractors and mowers.
 
Interstate makes a very good battery.Bought a 4DLT
for my Ford 3000 diesel a few days ago.I am a
Hyster fleet mechanic and we've been using
Interstates for a long time with very few
issues.Bought one off the battery truck for 128.00.It
was discounted though.

Paul
 
Interstate batteries are whoever makes em for the right price, there is no interstate battery factory, the manufacturer changes often, it's allot of marketing and sales fluff really
 
I'd go with the one that has the longer free replacement warranty. The pro rated warranty is only a scam.... because they depreciate the battery off list price and nobody pays list... so the bottom line is that once you exceed the free replacement period it's cheaper to just buy a new battery outright.
I've had good luck with both Delco and NAPA batteries. Right now I usually use NAPA because of convenience. NAPA's batteries 'here' are supplied by East Penn Dekka. If they were made by Exide I would not buy them....

Rod
 
(quoted from post at 22:09:30 02/11/16) I'd go with the one that has the longer free replacement warranty. The pro rated warranty is only a scam.... because they depreciate the battery off list price and nobody pays list... so the bottom line is that once you exceed the free replacement period it's cheaper to just buy a new battery outright.
I've had good luck with both Delco and NAPA batteries. Right now I usually use NAPA because of convenience. NAPA's batteries 'here' are supplied by East Penn Dekka. If they were made by Exide I would not buy them....

Rod

I have had good success with the East Penn Deka batteries from NAPA.
 
I will never buy another 4DLT.
Most places consider it an industrial
application and the warranty is not worth a
darn.
I bought a new one at Fleet Farm and got a
year and a half out of it before a cell went
dead. Still had the receipt so I brought it
back and it is only a 12 mo pro rated
warranty.
From now on I will buy a low profile
car/truck battery and get at least a 36 mo
pro rated warranty.
At least check their warranty closely to
make sure.
 
Ultradog,
I was wondering the same thing. That is why not get a car/truck battery that has the cranking amps and and amp-hour capacity. There are those that have a 36 month no charge replacement and they do not cost as much as the 4DLT such as the Everstarts. This is what I have seen in my nephews Ford 3500 which has two batteries. Is this what your 3500 has? Two on opposite fenders.
 
DL,
Well you do lose the cool factor of having
that big battery in the swing out tray.:)
As for the double batteries, I'm sure
someone added that on their own.
100_06021.jpg
 
Ultradog,


Thanks for the picture. There was a little confusion. I was confusing the Ford tractor with the truck. lol. Sometimes people post truck questions in the tractor forums because there is no forum for them except for classic trucks before 1986. Still, why not put 2 smaller batteries in parallel on the tray or is there a large enough non-industrial battery to fill the need? I did not realize it required such a large battery. That tray looks huge.
 
Not sure why they used such a big battery.
Though this size was used on the diesels
only.
Gasser was smaller.
I've started using a truck battery instead.
It's smaller but still has plenty of CCA.
One thing is you have to use a low profile
battery as the hood fits fairly close to the
top posts. Not sure what the class of
battery I used is but it's plenty big and
fairly low profile
 
(quoted from post at 18:34:33 02/12/16) Not sure why they used such a big battery.
Though this size was used on the diesels
only.
Gasser was smaller.
I've started using a truck battery instead.
It's smaller but still has plenty of CCA.
One thing is you have to use a low profile
battery as the hood fits fairly close to the
top posts. Not sure what the class of
battery I used is but it's plenty big and
fairly low profile

Diesels are a real pain to start, compared to gas. So they need the reserve cranking capacity. Also, if you live where it gets cold, you need the big battery. I live where 30 degrees is a major cold snap, so a car or truck battery is more than enough to start my backhoe. I used to buy the tractor battery, but 10 years ago went to something cheaper, smaller. It works.
 
You can fit a larger truck battery under the hood of those 3 cylinder tractors if you use one with the side post terminals. You have to change out the cables for ones with the side post type of connectors, but it guarantees you won't be shorting anything out when you close the hood.
 
(quoted from post at 14:50:03 02/12/16)
(quoted from post at 18:34:33 02/12/16) Not sure why they used such a big battery.
Though this size was used on the diesels
only.
Gasser was smaller.
I've started using a truck battery instead.
It's smaller but still has plenty of CCA.
One thing is you have to use a low profile
battery as the hood fits fairly close to the
top posts. Not sure what the class of
battery I used is but it's plenty big and
fairly low profile

Diesels are a real pain to start, compared to gas. So they need the reserve cranking capacity. Also, if you live where it gets cold, you need the big battery. I live where 30 degrees is a major cold snap, so a car or truck battery is more than enough to start my backhoe. I used to buy the tractor battery, but 10 years ago went to something cheaper, smaller. It works.

I agree with cheaper,, but a run of the mill battery is now $99 up... so the cheaper when compared to $140 at Sams or TSC, means I get more reserve time in the larger battery. Normally I get around 5 to 6 years out of the 4dlt in the very hot texas weather. The smaller batteries give me 3 to 4 years but have no reserve for cold weather preheats and longer cranking times.
 
Cause on a 4000 ya can run the damn thing half the summer without recharging it when the generator don't work...........
Plus, if ya leave them out in a snow bank they sometimes need the 4D to start when it's good and cold. It's not such a big factor on the 3 cylinders but definitely is on the 4's..

Rod
 
I have never had good luck with any NAPA battery. I now only use Carquest batteries. The one in my 9n is 9 nine years old this
month.
 
This tractor (3500 diesel) which I bought recently had an old car battery in it. I replaced it with a fairly new bluetop gel pack deep cycle battery, which was also a car battery. The bluetop has 55ah capacity. It could turnover and start the tractor, but the starter would not quit running until a good 30 seconds after the engine started running. Often I had to disconnect the battery to get it to stop. I read that the cause of this could be low battery power and could potentially damage the solenoid. I had a couple bluetop batteries around, so I then tried hooking up two bluetop batteries in parallel in the tractor. Both batteries were full charged. But I had the same problem with the starter not disengaging. I bought the 4DLT battery, and the issue with the starter went away. I would have thought the 2 batteries in parallel would double the capacity, or reserve capacity (I'm not sure the difference) and would be close in spec to the 4dlt capacity (or reserve capacity). Whether this impacts the issue of the starter, I'm not sure. But the problem did go away.

Btw, I got the AC Delco 4dlt battery as the guy I got it from gave me an extended warranty out of courtesy for doing years of business with him.
 
Farmerblair,

Does the 3500 tractor have a starter solenoid and firewall mounted solenoid?
I was just curious because my Dexta just has the firewall solenoid and a manually engaged starter pinion although there are now starters with a built in solenoid available.

Naturally the original Lucas (Prince of Darkness) developed a short that welded the firewall solenoid contacts and burned the positive cable going to the starter.

I find it curious that a battery with fewer amp-hour capacity would stay engaged once the tractor started once the starter button was released unless the starter was shorted like mine.
 
I'm not sure if it has both a starter solenoid and a solenoid on the firewall. The starter doesn't have a built-in solenoid, at least as far as I can tell and looking at the NH parts diagram for the starter.

Among the places where I saw a discussion of how a low battery (low voltage) can cause a starter to not disengage is at this forum webpage. The amp:hour wasn't the problem I guess. But I'm sure the batteries I ran in parallel were fully charged, so I'm not sure why the starter would run on, but not with the 4dlt.

http://www.yesterdaystractors.com/cgi-bin/viewit.cgi?bd=ttalk&th=719292
 
I guess the simplest explanation is during the course of starting the cold tractor (which takes a few minutes to start with several periodic 15 seconds or so of cranking of the starter) was enough to drop the voltage of the two car batteries in parallel. The voltage drop was enough to lock up the solenoid (?) and keep the starter running after turning off the key. The 4dlt battery with the larger reserve capacity did not have that voltage drop so the starter run-on did not occur. I'm pretty electrically challenged, so this is only my half-baked guess.
 

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