my battery died @ 30k..
i went to walmart and got one.. starts right up.

 

I don't have a difinitive answer for anyone looking for the difinitive answer. Batteries live and die according to many factors. Two of them that come to mind are environment and maintenance.
For extremely hot/cold, and humid and dry environments, the battery is victim to cell drying and post corrosion. For every wet battery, it is important to check the contacts and cell fluid level every so often.
Every wet battery lives longer by checking its health of fluids and post crud. A bit of Vaseline works well to ward off corrosion on the posts.
Take a look at your battery and clean the posts with a wire brush if crud is building. Put a bit of Vaseline around the posts and re-apply the clean contacts. If you do it right, you'll detect your battery becoming weak by the starting power. Replace when you detect slower starts.

 

Just went through the same decision you have now. Ended up w/ a Diehard Gold. Cost was less than OEM w/ a little better CCA rating. Local Costco/Pepboys/NAPA/etc didn't carry much in group 51. Big factor in my decision was three year full replacement and seven year (yea, seven ) prorate. Additionally, if anything happens where you need service or warranty work there is always a Sears around.
As a side note, my 02 OEM battery went 82k miles before it gave up the ghost. Can't fault that at all .

 

Walmart, $40 and a 2 year free replacement warranty.

 

word

 

Well the OEM battery finally gave up the ghost this morning. So I called my Honda dealer and checked some on-line sites:

Sears: DieHard Gold "South" $80.00 (on-line, plus tax, shipping and installation), 495 CCA, 80 min RC, 3-yr replacement, 100 months prorated.
Honda: OEM (made by Interstate) $100 (including tax and installation), 500 CCA, 85 min RC, 2-yr replacement, 100 months prorated.

CCA is Cold Cranking Amps and RC is Reserve Capacity. I have not checked Sears store yet, but I don't think they'd have anything better than what's on-line. All the others either have way low CCA or very high price. So it looks like it's either Sears or Honda OEM.

Anyone else want to chime in?

 

My car was choking pretty bad this past week. Today got worse so i drove over to firestone (where my roomate works) I think the meter said the battery was suppose to be putting out 410 or 440 cca. and my battery was only putting out 171 He hooked my up with an Interstate battery. I think it ran me close to 70 with tax.

Normally, i would be holding the start button for 1.5-2.5 seconds before the engine would turn over. Now it's about .5-1 second. Maybe this helps. Hope it does for someone.

 

when i have to replace mine im going with a light weight odyssey battery, its about 15lbs and from what i have heard it give plenty of power, but its lighter. might as well get more performance out of the car when you go to replace something

 

Here's a hint on how to recognize a weak battery, when you are not exposed to severe cold weather. I had noticed a very subtle decrease in the apparent cranking speed upon startup. Since the engine fires up in a second or two, it was hard to notice. But then, I noticed that the digits on the digital dash dimmed something awful during that cranking period. That gave me the hint I needed. With a new battery, the digital symbols are unperturbed by cranking the starter. The life of my battery? Just a few months short of 4 years.

 

Has anyone here had any experience with the buddy-club or spoon battery?