Jump to content
Click here to contact our helpful office staff ×

Another battery question


Beagler

Recommended Posts

In my opinion after reading years of battery chat, If your looking for a straight swap, unbolt, drop in replacement stick with the banner.  Weight savings are definitely available, but you have to find a battery mounting solution or possible cable terminal changes in combination with your new battery.  All doable but more faff than a straight replacement.  Also consider why your banner died, if it was due to deep discharge damage, some very light weight replacements get very unstable in that situation. Can you vouch for your banners history, did it get deep discharged by a previous owner, or while sitting at a dealer lot. So is the battery the problem or the use case?  Finally some alternatives may also require a different charger. 
Never had a problem with a banner, but know I am in the minority, they give reasonable life considering it's designed for a lawnmower.  Yes I could lose some weight with a battery swap, but I could also just loose some weight :-)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Leadership Team

Chris, likewise I didn't have any issues with the Banners on my previous car, it was 11 years old when I sold it and only on its second battery.

By comparison when I bought my SLR it had already been fitted with a PC535 which struggled so I replaced it with a PC680, at the time the car was putting out 244bhp so I assumed the battery wasn't up to the job. The PC680 didn't last as long as I thought but having made a cradle to take the larger 680 it was easier to replace with the same. And then again.  I've now had the SLR for 14 years and including the battery it had when I bought it, I've now had 4 Odyssey batteries.

The Odysseys are good batteries but in my (limited) experience they don't last any longer than a Banner which is a perfectly good battery for most Seven applications.  Hence my question to the OP at post #3, are there problems with the current Banner?

Stu.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My car is only 2 years old but as it was Caterhams it spent a lot of time idle in the showroom/Storage. I want to rule out battery damage as a result so hence the replacement . As its only £60 odd pounds it gives peace of mind to replace. I only do 3000 ish miles per year and have a trickle charger so dont really need anything elaborate.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Also had good experience with Banner, at least five years. With an intelligent trickle charger they seem fine. You can add an overflow tube (for a few pence) if not fitted but not sure that is really necessary.

Isn't checking the electrolyte level one of the many pleasures of owning this type of car ?

BTW Recommend Tanya for batteries.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"My Accumate is now 15 years old.  I note that the latest version(link is external) is labelled as AGM, GEL and STD, whereas mine states just STD -- due to its age, no doubt?"

Yes.

For anyone buying a smart conditioning charger make sure that it has enough oomph for the biggest battery on which you're going to use it and enough modes for all of them. Nowadays that will probably include AGM and might include lithium.

Jonathan

Link to comment
Share on other sites

#4 completely agree just stick with the banner battery with about 5/7 years life span from what I can see it's the easy option ?

Maybe a more modern way to put it into context is it works out at little more than one individual takeaway meal a year and maybe a cup of fashionable coffee over the lifetime of the battery.  

But it is nice to tinker with our toys,  *thumb_up* 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...