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Topic: DEKA Batteries (Read 1707 times) previous topic - next topic

Re: DEKA Batteries

Reply #20 –
Quote from: Paul Smith –
It would be helpful if Fortravel would do the owners of its coaches a favor by recommending they not use AGMs and give the reasons why.

best, paul

Well, all I can add is what Mike told me - he said they had so many coaches come back with AGM battery issues that they stopped using them. Seems they replaced them with gels and no more problems. I don't know if it was a bad batch, some issues with a supplier, or manufacturing problems, or what, but that's what he relayed to me. Is that the official company policy? I don't know.

I like AGMs - the Optima red top I purchased in 1993 was still going strong in the second car it was in when I sold it in 2009. Never had a battery last that long before.

In the end, it was the charge cycles that led me to settle on the gels. Guess I'll see over time if I made a good or bad decision.  :)

Spent so many hours searching and reading and trying to make a wise purchase - in the end, I think it's six of one and a half dozen of the other. Keep the connections clean and tight, don't overcharge or discharge too low between charges, and providing they were well made in the first place, the batteries will last some time.

Steve 

Re: DEKA Batteries

Reply #21 –
I can confirm that Aubrey Lee the Engineering Manager at FOT told me the same thing 5 days ago.  They've switched from AGM back to gel from East Penn Deka.  He didn't state why other than they had a bunch of issues with the AGMs they were using on new coaches.  This was all around a discussion we were having about LiFePO4 batteries and their possible usage in new models.