Price of OEM Battery For D3

HI Terry,

Had the pleasure of needing a new battery last week for a D4 - 4 years old and as mentioned...do a lot of short trips, so yep, shortens battery life. Searched the web, looked at forum feedback etc. Workshop manual & local LR dealer indicated it needs a 850CCA battery and quoted over $700.

A couple of internet battery guys struggled to recognise Land Rover as a brand let alone recommend the right battery....frustrating!!

Then I did what I thought would be a silly thing and went to Battery World (Phillip CBR) and asked if they could test the battery ( and yep...definitely needed replacing) and see if they could supply a new one.

The computer indicated a 725CCA was the go....I questioned this and said I believe the 3Ltr needed at least 850CCA. So....out with the battery, out the back of the shop and sure enough there was a Marshall battery on the shelf that looked as though it was made in the same factory as the OEM LR battery we had to compare....and 900CCA....I'll have one of those say me!!

How much?....$325..fitted; should have gone there first!!

Hi Guys,
Speaking my mechanic who I bought a standard battery 2 yrs ago for about $300 he mentioned that LandRover have a habit of jacking up prices unexpectabely overnight.
So much so that the standard battery is now over $600!

Same thing happened with the Lower front suspension arms, where about $300 then they figured out every one was buying the complete arm rather than replacing the bushes - price doubled to $600 per arm!
Anyway seems they have a large stock of front arms again because no one was buying them, guess what they dropped the price back to $300 again. ;)

They now have to get quotes from L/R every time they are doing a quote just in case!

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Originally Posted by p38arover

Is it just the load cars now put on batteries that kills them? In the 12 years I've had my P38A I must have been through 6 batteries.

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Also Ron living in an area where it is often -6 or lower first thing in the morning I reckon doesn't really do much for the life of the average battery.

A very good point, Terry and the D3/4 would have more electrickery than my P38.

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

If you do lots of short trips, the your battery is going to suffer from what I call Shopping Trolley Syndrome, you will harm the cranking battery, because the battery is never given the chance to be fully charged and this is not an inability of the alternator to do what it’s designed and capable of doing, this the alternator not being given enough time to do what it’s there for.

Even if you do the occasional long trip, continual short trips still have a detrimental effect on any cranking battery.

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Another question on this please Drivesafe.
My D4 is a daily driver and I do 35 k's each way to and from work, with very occasional trips during the day. I have a traxide kit installed with the recommended 2nd battery. Would periodic top-up charging be required for me? I dont keep the fridge in the car permanently and have no other accessories apart from the normal SE stuff.

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Originally Posted by drivesafe

For the life of me, I don’t know where people come up with this sort of misinformation.

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Based on experience, and auto sparky clients and a battery developer ! Alternators are not designed to look after batteries like a quality battery charger will....but then again both of my auto sparky clients and battery developer may be wrong.

Just like you say DC to DC chargers have false information publicised. Based on my experience and my second battery requirements, they work, and since using them have had no failed second batteries. I was advised more than 8 years ago by a Battery Technologist Developer to go this way and this cured my battery failures.

Both of my cars do in excess of 500kms per week...and still the Discovery cranker takes on the other side of 6 hours to get up to full charge every fortnight....fact! If the alternator was looking after the battery than this would not be the case.

My VW charges better, but never gets it back to full, otherwise I would not need the battery charger on for 3 or so hours to get it back to float. Even on several hours of running in the Disco, over a couple of days touring, still does not get the battery as high as my multi stage battery charger.

Batteries lasting 6 years plus for cranking confirms my technique works for me....not relying on the vehicle alternator to maintain the battery in a reliable way.

Brett....

My last service LR dealer told me my battery would need replacing. Not bad after 6 years and 145,000kms. Yep they told me in the vicinity of $600.


I have the Traxside Dual battery set up with the Yellow Top D3 battery for the second.
What is the correct type of battery for the main cranking battery and are there alternatives? What is the min required?
I have to have car serviced next month but I know LR will tell me to replace the original, but $600 is a bit rich.


Neil

Earlier I quoted price for the Varta G14. Just got another one @$396 delivered, so the price has come down!
PM works well.

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Originally Posted by lpj

Another question on this please Drivesafe.
My D4 is a daily driver and I do 35 k's each way to and from work, with very occasional trips during the day. I have a traxide kit installed with the recommended 2nd battery. Would periodic top-up charging be required for me? I dont keep the fridge in the car permanently and have no other accessories apart from the normal SE stuff.

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Hi lpj and probably not as the combination of the Yellowtop and the Traxide isolator would mean that after constant 35 km drives ( guessing at least 20 minutes ) your cranking battery will not be fully charged but will be very close to it.

The same goes for your Yellowtop.

But here’s where you setup will keep your cranking battery genuinely fully charged without the need to periodically use a battery charger.

All vehicles need to be driven for at least 15 minutes to replace the energy used while starting the motor.

But if a battery is not in a fully charged state, while the energy is replaced, this short drive time does not allow the battery to be fully charged, so it just stays in a low state of charge if you do continual short runs.

All lead acid batteries can be fast charged to about 80% SoC ( State of Charge ) but, no matter what type of battery it is, the battery itself controls the final 20% of it’s charge and the high the SoC of the battery, the slower the charging becomes.

This last 20% of the charging can take 2 or more hours to achieve, no matter what type of charging method you use.

So even when a battery is near fully charged when you start the motor, the fully charged battery will actually need a much longer drive time for the battery to get it back up to a genuinely fully charged state.

Now this is where the Traxide isolators, combined with a Yellowtop, come into their own.

Most lead acid batteries, whether they be cranking batteries or deep cycle batteries, Wet Cell, Gel or AGMs, have a fully charged voltage of 12.7v to 12.75v.

All Optima Yellowtop and most Optima Bluetop batteries have a fully charged voltage of 13.1v.

So when the motor is turned off, because the Traxide isolators remain on, the Optima Yellowtop, because it is always in a higher state of charge then the cranking battery, will discharged backwards into the cranking battery, acting like a trickle charger.

Over a very short period of time, the cranking battery is progressively charged to a genuine full state.

So lpj, as long as you are averaging at least 15 minutes driving each time you start your motor, between the way the D3 and D4 do a boost charge just after starting the motor and the way the Traxide isolator allows the auxiliary battery to continually trickle charge the cranking battery while the motor is off, you should not need to use a battery charger at any time.

If the average drive time is 10 minutes or less, even a Traxide setup can not keep your cranking battery fully charged.

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Originally Posted by disco4now

I think the Optima D34 via Traxide in shared mode carried it for the last 4 months of that anyway

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Hi Garry and yep, this is a common occurrence.

I’m not sure if it’s detrimental in any way but it does mean you don’t have to buy a new battery as soon as you would have too normally.