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I've had a couple of Deka batteries, they are very good.
 












That is a great deal. I don't need another battery right now, but they're all getting older.
 






I prefer Odyssey battery even on my other cars.
 






Thought I'd share a short relevant story here.

I bought a Diehard Gold AGM 2 years ago. 2 days ago I do some early morning errands and by the time I got back home it was light. Go out later that night and the battery is dead. 4.5v. I forgot I had my headlights on. Doh! Advanced Auto is a .223 shot away so I dropped the battery off and had them trickle charge it and told them I'll see you in the morning. Yesterday morning I get the battery. 13.4v. Cool. Dropped it in and drove around half the day. This morning I checked the voltage. 12.5v. Started it up and after about it minute it leveled off at 14.1v.

Do you think a regular lead acid battery would have needed to be replaced in this scenario?
 






^ While you have a point, if it had been the same situation but the battery I bought last fall for $100, if it didn't pass their load test after charging then I'd have gotten a new battery free... prorating only starts after 3 years.
 






This is the conundrum. Just like auto parts, cheap and replace often or pricey and last longer.

Now what if I were in the middle of nowhere, say camped on a mountain somewhere. I'd think the agm would charge on a jump start and make the rest of the trip no problem where-as a regular battery would likely be unable to hold a charge.

I've also wondered what the best choice is between carrying an extra battery, a portable charger/jump starter or a set of good quality jumpers. An Odyssey pc680 for a spare would take up less room than both and is about the same cost as a 4 gauge jumper set at $100. Battery is 16lbs. Jumpers 10lbs. Charger/Jumper??. May be small enough to stash in the jack compartment.
 






I don't find regular flooded lead acid to be much of a gamble unless pushing my luck on the age. I've never forgotten to turn my headlights off and never gotten less than 4 years out of a flooded battery.

Heavy jumper cables are great for frequent use but if not pushing your luck on the battery, a $15 set of cables should do fine to jump start a 4.0L or 5.0L gas engine in all but extreme cold weather. It'll be able to deliver more current than the real capacity of some of those overrated little portable jump starter battery packs.

Even so, I might rather take along a little portable generator, one with the 12V outlet and that can put some charge back into a battery as well as being useful for other things, though I wouldn't venture into no man's land alone if my battery were questionable.
 






Even so, with a brand new lead acid battery, if you were to leave something on or plugged it (happens to the best of us) or a short from a recent electrical job, a lead acid battery would be unusable if the voltage was anywhere near that low.
 






Since that has never happened to me, I can't justify the extra battery cost to cover that kind of event, especially in the cell phone era.

Plus if you have a new flooded lead acid battery and drain it down to nothing, you're still likely to be able to keep your engine running to get back to civilization if someone gives you a jump.
 












The higher option Explorers have a battery saver, which shuts down the lights after about 20 minutes or so. My 93 Limited had it, that was slick back then.

The solar panels available these days got me looking for a charging method with them. I bought a solar panel controller, from Battery Tender, for about $22. I don't have a panel yet, I just measured that the ideal size would be close to 12x28", to fit the sunroof. Assuming a panel is available to fit well, it should trickle charge a battery well, like the home units.

Hunt for that panel, see if there's an off the shelf version. It would need to be thin, the flexible type are typically very thin with the thickest point being the electrical connectors attached.
 






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