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Best lawn mower battery

#1

J

Jayrh

Hello all, I have bought a bunch of Walmart mower batteries. They outlast the 90 warranty and that's about all. I would like a battery that will last a year or two. Or should I mount a car battery between my feet! All reply's much appreciated..........Jay


#2

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

I've had good luck with Batteries from Tractor supply, can't remember the name brand, also the L&G Batteries from o'Reilly Auto Parts.


#3

wrldtvlr

wrldtvlr

AGM batteries are more expensive that old school lead acid batteries, but last longer. You might try one of those and see if it helps.


#4

R

Rivets

Been using Interstate batteries for the last 15 years at the shop and in all my vehicles. No problems or customer complaints.


#5

7394

7394

I'm just past the 6 year point on my Z, & it still has the OE battery. But I do hook it to a battery MINDer® here & there.

And not all batteries are created equal. Some that are under the seat are about 1 inch lower than any off the shelf battery.. Just saying.

Mine has one like that. 1 inch taller would fit, but when the seat bounces, it might cause issues..


#6

tom3

tom3

I've been using the Tractor Supply batteries for several years, get really good long term service. I take the battery out in January and give it a recharge. Usually buy the upper level battery, 300 amp I'm thinking.


#7

Q

qmark

Could you have some other problem, some sort of a discharge. Even Walmart batteries should last a way more than 90 days.
Check your voltage while running. The alternator should be putting out about 14 volts.


#8

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

Depends on the mower, most regulate it to around 13.2 volts.


#9

Q

qmark

13.2 seems low, but I don't know what most lawn mowers do. That might not be enough to maintain a battery. My grasshopper is 14.2 like most other engines. Low charging voltage will ruin a battery over time.


#10

Mower King

Mower King

qmark said:
13.2 seems low, but I don't know what most lawn mowers do. That might not be enough to maintain a battery. My grasshopper is 14.2 like most other engines. Low charging voltage will ruin a battery over time.
Click to expand...

I agree with this quote!

We sell Interstate Batteries, the SP-40 is the one I always grab and install in all the mowers I work on. They are 435 CA and seem to last for years if charged during the winter season.


#11

Scrubcadet10

Scrubcadet10

For th record I have never seen a small engine charging at 14 volts, not saying they don't, but On the ATV's and other equipment I have worked on with charging systems the average seems be 13.2-13.5 volts at the battery. My cub cadet has charged at 13.2 volts since new. No issues with Batteries prematurely going bad.
Maybe if it has an electric PTO clutch I could imagine it would require a beefier charge.


#12

B

bertsmobile1

Jayrh said:
Hello all, I have bought a bunch of Walmart mower batteries. They outlast the 90 warranty and that's about all. I would like a battery that will last a year or two. Or should I mount a car battery between my feet! All reply's much appreciated..........Jay
Click to expand...
Car batteries are not mechanically strong enough to be used in a mower unless it has suspension.
Motorcycle batteries and in particular AGM PVR motorcycle batteries are by far the most robust aside from spiral cell batteries which are even stronger.

As for Walmart, every battery that comes off the production line is tested.
The good ones get the top line brand stickers put on it.
The ones that just barely pass go to Walmart
I made batteries for a long while and that is exactly what happens
On our lines the batteries came off then line , got a serial number fused into the top then wend down the paint line to be painted what ever company the quality of the battery dictated.
Having said that if we had to fill a 10,000 unit supermarket brand batery & did not have enough dud ones in hand then we would add some good ones to the garbage pile.


#13

R

Rivets

Charging systems on today’s small engines can easily charge over 14 V, especially if the battery is worn down. As long as the voltage drops as the battery is being charged, doesn’t bother me.


#14

Hammermechanicman

Hammermechanicman

Even the cheap box store batteries should last more than 90 days. When i buy batteries i take a tester that measures internal resisrance and find the one with the lowest resistance. Much better test of battery condition than a voltaget test. I wonder what the early failure mode of the the batteries is? What is the charging voltage? Where is the mower stored? Is there a parasitic draw?


#15

Q

qmark

Hammermechanicman said:
Even the cheap box store batteries should last more than 90 days. When i buy batteries i take a tester that measures internal resisrance and find the one with the lowest resistance. Much better test of battery condition than a voltaget test. I wonder what the early failure mode of the the batteries is? What is the charging voltage? Where is the mower stored? Is there a parasitic draw?
Click to expand...
Interesting, how do you measure internal resistance?


#16

Mower King

Mower King

qmark said:
Interesting, how do you measure internal resistance?
Click to expand...
Hammermechanicman said:
Even the cheap box store batteries should last more than 90 days. When i buy batteries i take a tester that measures internal resisrance and find the one with the lowest resistance. Much better test of battery condition than a voltaget test. I wonder what the early failure mode of the the batteries is? What is the charging voltage? Where is the mower stored? Is there a parasitic draw?
Click to expand...
I'm also interested in this answer!


#17

Hammermechanicman

Hammermechanicman

They commonly call these CCA testers. They measure the internal resistance and voltage to calculate CCA. They are very good at telling you the co dition of the battery. As batteries age the internal resistance goes up.

ArtiBattery101

ArtiBattery101 Car Battery Tester - 12V Car Auto Battery Load Tester on Cranking System and Charging System Scan Tool, TT Topdon AB101 100-2000 CCA Battery Tester Automotive for Cars/SUVs/Light Trucks
obd.topdon.com obd.topdon.com


#18

Mower King

Mower King

Hammermechanicman said:
They commonly call these CCA testers. They measure the internal resistance and voltage to calculate CCA. They are very good at telling you the co dition of the battery. As batteries age the internal resistance goes up.

ArtiBattery101

ArtiBattery101 Car Battery Tester - 12V Car Auto Battery Load Tester on Cranking System and Charging System Scan Tool, TT Topdon AB101 100-2000 CCA Battery Tester Automotive for Cars/SUVs/Light Trucks
obd.topdon.com obd.topdon.com
Click to expand...
Thanks....never heard of one of those testers


#19

Hammermechanicman

Hammermechanicman

Check around sleezbay and amazon. You can get one for around $40.


#20

S

slomo

Autoparts stores like Autozone will test for free. They can check internal resistance. Which means absolutely nothing. Only way to really test a battery is under LOAD. Does the little guy crank over or not. And not drop below 10.5 VDC while cranking. I've seen while testing, slight over rating batteries not turn a car starter over. If you have a shorted cell to another, the resistance will go down for the entire battery. See where this is going?

The best batteries you can buy are tractor/farm batteries. Course they are in larger case sizes most of the time so back to square one. Last I heard there are only like 3 main companies that MAKE batteries. What like Johnson Controls and maybe two more????

slomo


#21

R

Rivets

Just read through the description of this unit and it is just a small load tester, used in the automotive industry for years. One correction, it cannot measure resistance, as resistance is measured through a solid object. Any sort of voltage flowing through an object while testing for resistance will ruin a meter. In a battery there is no solid connection, if there where the battery would have what is called a dead short. Mechanics normally call it a bad cell.


#22

Hammermechanicman

Hammermechanicman

I am not going to argue on the internet. It is as productive as pushing a chain. The tester is not a load tester. Folks can believe what they will according to their research. I would challenge folks to research battery capacity testing via the internal resistance method.

1598399042940.jpg


#23

B

bertsmobile1

Actually both of them, and a dozen more are done to every battery as it comes off the production line.
No factory deliberately makes low quality batteries.
All of the battery lines are designed to make premium batteries but like all production line processes not every battery will be perfect.
The ones that are not perfect will end up in Walmart, , HF and other discount retailers.
When I first started battery grids were 2.5mm thick
By the time I left they were 0.5mm thick but made from a slightly stronger alloy
However drop one from waist height onto the floor and 3/4 of the plates will have broken free of the single busbar that holds them in place.
This is why I told you that ab AGM battery is far far stronger because the mat provides a lot of support for the plates.
Pressure Valve regulating prevents the battery self discharging by preventing the evolution of hydrogen gas.

The down side is mower owners are cheap bastards who point blank refuse to pay what anything is worth so there is no way any one will pay $ 250 for a battery when they can get one for $ 75 ( $ Aus) .
It is as simple as that.
Car makers demanded we make cheaper & lighter batteries and will accept anything that had a mean time between failure of 18 months ( warranty is 12 months )
OTOH the car makers branded batteries sold through parts shops were premium batteries with a service life of 10 years.
Hawker-Cyclon developed a battery for aircraft use that could take a massive amount of abuse , provide massive CCA , recharge very rapidly and have no self discharge.
These were spiral cell batteries and are available to Joe Public under the Optima brand.
These are head & shoulders the absolute best battery money can buy but no one would ever fit one to a lawn mower because they are too much of a cheapskate.
I run Cyclons in all my motorcycles in many cases upside down they will last better than 10 years (one is now 18 years old ) but they cost me $ 120 .
We ran Optimas in our entire fleet of courier vans and in 20 years never had a battery or alternator problem with the entire fleet
But again these were $ 350 as comparred to $ 65 from a cheap car parts retailer.
I blew a truck drivers brain when we jumped his Kenworth / Cummings with the battery from my L 300 & a standard battery from one of the forks to make 24V
The yard manager was so impressed he bought 40 of them for all of the fork lifts which were forever suffering from flat batteries

Everything else is just Ford vs GM brand bull dust


#24

S

slomo

Rivets said:
Just read through the description of this unit and it is just a small load tester, used in the automotive industry for years. One correction, it cannot measure resistance, as resistance is measured through a solid object. Any sort of voltage flowing through an object while testing for resistance will ruin a meter. In a battery there is no solid connection, if there where the battery would have what is called a dead short. Mechanics normally call it a bad cell.
Click to expand...
Batteries over time can and do short cells to one another. They have a sediment tray in the bottom of the case. When a car or mower hits a bump, over time, small bits of lead fall off the plates and land in the tray. Again over time, this tray fills up with lead. And now thanks to salesmen and corporate giant companies squeeking every penny, the trays are SMALLER and offer the ultimate sales gimmick, more CCA's. So now, they offer thinner plates to stack more plates in the case = more cca's. So we think wow, this battery has 1000 cca's and it's wonderful. Now, with construction paper thick plates LOL, no wonder these new batteries don't last for 4 sneezes.

Moral of this novel is get your proper case size. Get the LOWEST rated CCA you can possibly find. That's right the LOWEST. Why, the plates inside are thicker and last longer. Back to tractor/farm batteries. They have a deeper sediment tray and thicker plates. How many tractors sit outside in the weather and will crank over a year after it was ran? Try that with your new 1000cca walmart job LOL.

P.S.
Do we need 1000 cca's? Most of today's cars and trucks offer gear reduction starters. They are smaller and lighter blah blah. Most draw like 100 amps. Do the second grade math on that one. Finally the starter is the highest drain in the vehicle. I need a nap...... LOL

slomo


#25

S

slomo

bertsmobile1 said:
Actually both of them, and a dozen more are done to every battery as it comes off the production line.
No factory deliberately makes low quality batteries.
All of the battery lines are designed to make premium batteries but like all production line processes not every battery will be perfect.
The ones that are not perfect will end up in Walmart, , HF and other discount retailers.
When I first started battery grids were 2.5mm thick
By the time I left they were 0.5mm thick but made from a slightly stronger alloy
However drop one from waist height onto the floor and 3/4 of the plates will have broken free of the single busbar that holds them in place.
This is why I told you that ab AGM battery is far far stronger because the mat provides a lot of support for the plates.
Pressure Valve regulating prevents the battery self discharging by preventing the evolution of hydrogen gas.

The down side is mower owners are cheap bastards who point blank refuse to pay what anything is worth so there is no way any one will pay $ 250 for a battery when they can get one for $ 75 ( $ Aus) .
It is as simple as that.
Car makers demanded we make cheaper & lighter batteries and will accept anything that had a mean time between failure of 18 months ( warranty is 12 months )
OTOH the car makers branded batteries sold through parts shops were premium batteries with a service life of 10 years.
Hawker-Cyclon developed a battery for aircraft use that could take a massive amount of abuse , provide massive CCA , recharge very rapidly and have no self discharge.
These were spiral cell batteries and are available to Joe Public under the Optima brand.
These are head & shoulders the absolute best battery money can buy but no one would ever fit one to a lawn mower because they are too much of a cheapskate.
I run Cyclons in all my motorcycles in many cases upside down they will last better than 10 years (one is now 18 years old ) but they cost me $ 120 .
We ran Optimas in our entire fleet of courier vans and in 20 years never had a battery or alternator problem with the entire fleet
But again these were $ 350 as comparred to $ 65 from a cheap car parts retailer.
I blew a truck drivers brain when we jumped his Kenworth / Cummings with the battery from my L 300 & a standard battery from one of the forks to make 24V
The yard manager was so impressed he bought 40 of them for all of the fork lifts which were forever suffering from flat batteries

Everything else is just Ford vs GM brand bull dust
Click to expand...
In the US Army, we had pallets of dead Optima red tops. Years, I mean decades ago, when Optima came out on the market, they were good batteries. Like Bert said, lasted a long time. Today I think they are made in Mexico??. Nothing against that but they are sh_t now. Corporate America got a hold of them. Drove a good company into the ground. Only thing I like about them is they do not leak and corrode terminals. Every base overseas I went to, the motor pool had shoulder high pallet loads of dead red tops and yellow tops. Some reason they kept ordering them new?? Must of had a contract of course.

slomo


#26

A

Ariens A19A42

bertsmobile1 said:
Car batteries are not mechanically strong enough to be used in a mower unless it has suspension.
Motorcycle batteries and in particular AGM PVR motorcycle batteries are by far the most robust aside from spiral cell batteries which are even stronger.

As for Walmart, every battery that comes off the production line is tested.
The good ones get the top line brand stickers put on it.
The ones that just barely pass go to Walmart
I made batteries for a long while and that is exactly what happens
On our lines the batteries came off then line , got a serial number fused into the top then wend down the paint line to be painted what ever company the quality of the battery dictated.
Having said that if we had to fill a 10,000 unit supermarket brand battery & did not have enough dud ones in hand then we would add some good ones to the garbage pile.
Click to expand...
Does that apply to the Wal-Mart Ever Start car batteries? Also then what brand got the good ones that might not hike the price real high for lawn tractors?


#27

B

bertsmobile1

IT applies to all batteries.
It is a volume thing
It takes a full shift to set up for a new size battery so the most popular size will always be the cheapest .
As for the best , that will be the Optima Spiral cell batteries
I think Toro fitted them standard to some commercial mowers but Joe Average will no pay$ 150 US for a battery
We used them excuseivly in the fleet of wedding cars & all the delivery vans.


#28

A

Ariens A19A42

Any mower batteries in the $40-$65 range that are any good in the 320 cca range?

I'll be pulling mine when its cold out and lawn doesn't need mowed often and give it a good charge then leave it on a battery tender.


#29

S

slomo

bertsmobile1 said:
As for the best , that will be the Optima Spiral cell batteries
Click to expand...
I beg to differ on that statement.

Way back in the day when Optima first came out, YES, they were GREAT batteries THEN. Now, look elsewhere.

The US military has a contract to use Optimas. At every base I've been to, there are several pallets full of dead Optima red tops. They keep flying them in and flying them out. Every generator, Hmmwv and so on uses them. Army trucks have very low miles on them. Still have a ridiculous failure rate.

Last I heard they were made in Mexico. They've gone all corporate and chiseled down the quality like everything else. Only thing I like about them is they don't leak, that's it.


#30

7394

7394

My Toro battery that came w/it in 2014, lasted almost 5 years. And it was way under-rated CCA's for what the manual called for. That was a fine old machine.


#31

A

Ariens A19A42

7394 said:
My Toro battery that came w/it in 2014, lasted almost 5 years. And it was way under-rated CCA's for what the manual called for. That was a fine old machine.
Click to expand...
Interest I saw somewhere a guy said the lower CCA one's lasted longer because of somehow the plates were smaller or bigger and farther apart I think he said.

Thank you for your message


#32

D

DWSarow

I use Interstate Battery, and never let a battery run down and freeze.Invest in a battery maintainer and volt meter.Keep the connections clean and tight ,the battery from jumping around.


#33

B

bertsmobile1

The CCA is determined by the surface area of the plates and the size of the grains in the paste
Neither of which will make much difference to the battery life
OTOH the number of plates will if they are stuffed into the same size case
Plates vary in thickness from 2mm down to 0.5 mm
Thicker plates will last longer
Most batteries fail from mechanical damage , they fall apart internally .
This of course excludes abuse like leaving them flat for a long time or dead shorting them .


#34

7394

7394

I keep my batteries maintained by my Battery MINDer®️s.. 1.5mA Set 'em & forget them. They have temperature compensators on them to adjust float levels..


#35

mucksiegooma

mucksiegooma

Jayrh said:
Hello all, I have bought a bunch of Walmart mower batteries. They outlast the 90 warranty and that's about all. I would like a battery that will last a year or two. Or should I mount a car battery between my feet! All reply's much appreciated..........Jay
Click to expand...
I just put in a Sears Die Hard lawn tractor battery. The last one lasted over 10 years.


#36

B

bertsmobile1

While it is no guarrantee batteries quality is proportional to its price.
As they come off the production line each & every one is extensively tested the ones that are just barely acceptable go down the chute & get the Walmart stickers put on it
And from then on as the quality increases they get stickers for higher cost brands.
Most factories have only one assembly line for any particular battery and they hope that all of them will be perfect.
But this never happens so they get graded as per above .
The top line will be sold in a printed box , the bottom end is usually supplied bare
Now the caveat to this is Walmart need 1,000,000 batteries month but the factory will not make a million almost dud batteries a month .
So they fill the short fall by rebadging the next highest grade Walmart and if still not enough then they go up another grade level till the order is filled because the line is designed to make perfect batteries only .
The problem comes when some one pays $ 10 but gets the $ 100 battery rebadged and no surprise the $ 10 battery last 10 years without any problems so they post this on the web claiming that the Walmart batteries are better than the battery shop batteries and cost 90% less and the myth is born & spread .
As batteries do go bad over time, there is a good chance that the $ 100 battery you bought from the battery shop was 5 years old before you bought it because they do not sell many $ 100 in year as most people buy the mid range $ 50 battery .
So you buy the $ 100 battery expecting to get 10 years out of it but only get the same 5 as you did from the $ 50 so you go on face book & tell everybody there is no difference between the $ 100 top line battery & the $ 50 popular battery, yet another myth is born & spreads all over the web .
Now batteries are made very differently for different applications
Mower & motorcycle batteries have thicker grid plates to compensate for the rough ride they get & the vibrations .

The vast majority of batteries, not subjected to abuse like running them dead flat and leaving them like this for extended times die from mechanical failure.
By far the strongest construction is the spiral cell structure used by Optima & Cyclon and these are head & shoulders better than any other battery lead acid you will ever buy .
They are also the most expensive .
Toro uses them as standard on some of their better mowers .


#37

D

DWSarow

On my old Cub Cadet,I don't know if it helps, I put a piece of floor mat under battery,a little bit of cushion


#38

7394

7394

DWSarow said:
On my old Cub Cadet,I don't know if it helps, I put a piece of floor mat under battery,a little bit of cushion
Click to expand...
Me too, on my Liberty......


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