Trojan Battery Replacement Process

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

I have 6 Trojan house batteries that are 1-1.5 years old. My house battery voltage was low so I equalized and recharged them. The voltage was still only at 13v so I checked specific gravity and found 3 batteries with marginal readings. I decided to pull all of them and take them to the dealer where I purchased for testing. His hand held tester indicted 2 of the batteries were bad. I expected to get 2 new batteries and be on my way. Nope... they said they needed to test them to ensure they were bad and to collect the data they needed to get a credit from Trojan. This was yesterday at about 3PM. Checked at noon today and was told they are "under test" and may be done by late afternoon or tomorrow for sure. Service manager said this is standard practice for golf cart batteries. (I purchased them at a golf cart shop).

Has anyone had to replace Trojans under warranty and if so, is this SOP? Obviously, this would be a mess if I  were on the road. Interstates are starting to look pretty good right now.....

Thx,  Steve

[Karl Welhart]

Steve,

Do not be surprised if they tell you the batteries are good...  This testing procedure is a standard practice in the golf cart battery world.  Most of the time, these batteries can be recharged to a useable/rechargeable level, but may not last very long.  Normally, low or poor charging practice can be the blame for this situation.  I would recommend you check the charger/inverter for proper operation.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Karl,
Thanks for the input.
Will check the Inverter /Charger again, but voltages/currents from it looked normal during the charging process. In any case, I'll have a real problem taking back batteries that initially  tested bad to their checker even if they can get them "working" again as this would appear to be a way to get batteries past the warranty period.
We'll see...
Steve

[Lee Welbanks]

Oh yeah anything they can do to weasel their way out of giving a customer any help with their crap batteries. Batteries are weird one will last for years and the next one in the same service will give out in a year. Found this to be true with truck batteries. Same mfg, same model off the same line,,just go figure.

[Steve Huber Co-Admin]

Update: after running charge and discharge tests they found 1 battery bad (one that I found having a very low specific gravity in one cell). Rest checked out good including the other one that the hand held load tested IDed as bad. Said it was this wa a common outcome (you were right, Karl). Process for 6 batteries took 2 full days. Don't know but assume that a single battery would not take as long. They agreed that the bad battery may well have prevented the others from taking a full charge, as they initially suspected my charger/inverter. After I reinstalled and turned on the inverter/charger, it ran for about 90 minutes before going to standby. Battery voltage about 13.7.
Jury still out in my mind as to Trojans v other wet cells as the replacement procedure appears to be  pain. I checked with the local Trojan distributor and Trojan factory and both confirmed the process. So, these better last longer than Interstates and hopefully the failure was a fluke.
Steve