Yellow Top, Red Top, or Otherwise?

I find a lot of the "epic overlanders" stuff really gag worthy, hell even the van life stuff is bad. Can't stand any of them, or their disingenuous voice overs while the drone flies overhead. Couple people in my province have been trying to get into the scene hardcore and they're getting just as obnoxious as the Big Overlanders.

 

I am looking at Odessey or Northstqr 27f with a alternator mod.

 

https://www.batteriesplus.com/productdetails/sli34=78agmdp

I run this, Ran it few months before tuning my alternator.

The warranty sold me on it. It also goes on sale!

 

Nope. Nope, nope, nope. The thermal tolerances of an AGM absolutely eclipse a LA battery.

 

I dig Revere Overland on YouTube. He seems like a pretty average Joe who has a drone and likes to document.

Also, I enjoyed the Mighty Car Mods Kei To The Sea. It was pretty amusing (as is the content of their offroading adventures to that point).

But otherwise, I agree with you.

 

Update: I simply could not get the battery I wanted, and I needed one so I had to buy something. I didn't want to get a lead-acid battery due to how I'd be using the vehicle, so that narrowed my choice. The ONLY thing I could find was either a Yellow-top or an Odyssey Performance line. I opted for the latter but was disappointed that I couldn't find the Odyssey Extreme which is what I was after, which was a second choice ot a Northstar).

It is amazing how much better the new battery starts and runs everything. I'm not convinced the prior battery was ever the correct size/rating or was even in good working condition.

I also sprung for a

$29 Battery Monitor BM2 BM3 Bluetooth 4.0 Wireless Battery Tester 12V Automotive Battery Load Tester,Automotive Charging and Cranking System Monitor Digital Battery Analyzer for Android & iOS

bluetooth battery monitor which was mentioned in THIS THREAD, which pretty closely agrees with my voltmeter on the light switch panel. IMO it is well worth it to check the status and to have something of a record of battery performance to let me know when/if there's impending issues. Interestingly, my alternator seems to be putting out a slightly higher voltage than was mentioned, however I will be moving to one of the products to increase voltage output by 'tricking' the alternator output sensor.

 

Glad you asked for thoughts and negated them. Do you have an article supporting that? I'd like to read it. Especially sub-zero temps.
Frozen AGM's suck.

 

I don't see that I negated any thoughts given; quite the opposite. I got a battery that was available (which is a battery I wouldn't have looked for without this data, and which still has better performance characteristics and higher reliability claims than a yellow-top) and I'll be replacing it at some point when the supply allows for another one of two options which were inspired by information gained from this thread. The battery I have is probably fine for my immediate needs and well into the future, however it isn't the battery I was after which has an even larger performance envelope.

As for operational temperature tolerances, you can check manufacturer tolerances directly against each other. You're welcome to do that. There's no shortage of tech data available which makes this easily attainable data. A flooded battery is out of the question due to durability issues and my usage. A gel battery is better but suffers from thermal limitations to a greater degree than AGM.

 

I am running only the second battery on my 2009 V6 sport. Got 7 years out of the OEM and now going on 6 1/2 years with the replacement that is the Advance Auto house brand AGM. I ran it for about 4 1/2 years with the stock charging setup then installed the diode mod. That worked as advertised to boost the voltage a bit but after running it for a year like that my alternator voltage regulator died. Put in a new alternator about 4 months ago and left the diode off, battery is still working fine. Just reporting my experience. IOW it may not be optimum to run an AGM with the stock charging profile but the battery seems to tolerate it just fine and has never let me down, even in the dead of winter. And boosting the voltage with a diode may cause premature VR failure. I'd like to see if anyone else had that happen?? Advance now carries "Die Hard" branded AGM and that is what I put in my Vette. Looks identical to the one in my Tacoma.