The NorthStar AGM Battery + Voltage Booster Upgrade

I wouldn’t worry about it. Gets extremely cold here & upon startup sometimes it will go as high as 14.9-15v but settled down after. At those temps the chemical reaction in the battery is so slow. Worse thing you could possibly do is leave it discharged.

 

Got this in the mail yesterday

Now to wait until it warms up and snow melts in the next day or two to install and see the difference.
I've been starting with 14.3 and would drop to 14.0 or 13.9 by the time I drove 17.5 miles to work and 30 minutes of driving.
At last check they are sold out again.

 

Money well-spent

 

In regards to X2 AGM batteries. Are people been happy? Ive gone through two 27F's under warranty (Batteries Plus is a great retailer) in the last 3 years. I do have HKB booster and monitor my charge ,voltage is in appropriate range. Draw tests show nothing abnormal. Do people have the branded Northstars or Odyssey have reliabilty issues? I do an online search about X2 reliability issues and there are more then I expect to see.As well as more than 1 replacement "fixing" the issues. Most complaints are posted after the Enersys purchase of Northstar and I assume because of Batteries Plus retail presence there are quite a few more branded X2 batteries being purchased than Northstar. Is the "failure" rate because of Enersys ownership or the market saturated with X'2 batteries? Just seems odd for the number of reports where I see examples of 2 battery warrenties occurring.

 

I feel your pain. i had 2 die in my taco. i still have 1 in my Evo X but its charging @ 14.5 vdc its loves it
I switched to the Costco AGM in the taco.

 

Installed and working. Tomorrow is the first test run to work.

 

If it happens with a different brand then I’d look at how I was using it instead. Too many short trips, parking for extended periods, keeping it either stuffed full or too low resting voltage, overheated regularly, often parked below freezing, or both, etc. Not saying it IS your usage/environment, just that it’s a place to look when multiple failures occur.

 

So my 21 battery is just at 3.5 years old and it is dead in 3 days... Complete crap battery. I have an odyssey coming since Napa can not get a 24F in Optima but I am seeing conflicting information about the charging requirements and the 3rd gen being ECU controlled. Some say it will destroy the battery and others say it is fine... Replacing a battery should not require ECU programming lol. I have run Optimas in 4x4s for years with no problems and those are AGM. Who actually knows please chime in.

 

Isn’t that what the last 67 pages talks about?

 

You're WAY better off with an Odyssey than an Optima. The former are excellent quality batteries. The latter used to be, but went downhill dramatically after being sold/outsourced.

As explained in the preceding pages of this thread, AGMs have slightly different charging needs than flooded batteries. These needs can be met via ECU/charging system changes, OR you can care for your AGM battery with periodic time on a charger designed for AGMs. This is what I've gleaned from a LOT of reading, including this thread, AND first-hand experience running AGMs in my '13 Tacoma, my '13 Shelby GT500, and my '19 Corvette Z06. Only the Tacoma's charging system was easily upgraded. The other two were not. I've had no problems maintaining all three batteries with CTEK Smartchargers. Good luck!

 

Look at your new battery (when you get it). On the label, you should a spec for the required/optimum charging voltage. That is your answer.

If the charging voltage is higher than the voltage your alternator puts out, either up that voltage, or do as @Norton said, and use an external charger once a month or so.