Car Battery- Brand recommendation and review please.

hitachi mfx
pros
-seems good
-24 month warranty
cons
-abit pricy....

how does it differs with other brands? almost like additional rm100+, but if it is really more performance/stable/+2yrs warranty, why not?!

Yokohama MF , century MF

But my most satisfied purchase is CTEK mx5.0 charger , every once boost the batteries to full capacity

For many years all these MF only last one year , once I started charging with wall charger , now 2 years still strong.

Any new battery is given a boost before install to offset the shelf storing discharge

yokohama marathoner

its good practice..... my dad's car.... the original potong battery, 5-7 years (somewhere there x ingat betul betul)
the other thing about mf batteries, lepas warranty habis.. u can pecah and topup fluid....

Finally found someone having similar sentiments like i do regarding car battery charger. I own the same charger by the way.

Workshop people con us drivers left right centre saying that MF batteries can't last beyond 2 years. Then we takut takut go change every 18-24 months. Actually, even normal ones can last double that time if periodically put it under charge. Can save money on the long run but many still don't believe it.

I usually do a maintenance charge overnight once a month. How's your regime?

I know right , totally worth the investment from changing once a year to once every two years , it pays for itself in a few cycles of changes

Maintenance charge once twice a year , if signs of slow crank boost mode . No real regime but seems to have worked well so far.

Once a month is going to be optimum practice for sure

If got more than 1 car at home, pays itself back much faster. But many don't understand the benefit as it takes time to pay itself back.

Another really cheap investment for car battery health is a simple multimeter, measure every few months to make sure battery in good health. If lower, put it to charge. If still cannot go back to normal, that means showing signs of battery dying. At least no need to be suddenly stranded with a dead battery.

Another one is to get AGM type of battery. Damn expensive, costs 3x normal premium MF batteries, but can last the life time of the car. If put under the charger, can last above 15 years.

noob with a silly question here.......how do you charged our car battery?.......do we need to take the battery off our car to charged?........thanks

Nope , just clip on battery terminals and off you go

Unless boost mode then advised to remove terminals because it goes to 16v , much higher than normal 14v from alternator

wont have any ill effects on our car's sensitive electronic system??.......need to charged overnight?........check on internet roughly around rm.550 per unit.......how much did you guys buy?........thanks for the info.

No effect so far on efi card I have used

Just charge until green , depending on how discharged the battery is , takes longer or shorter

Based on my 1 time experience with Century Marathoner, disappointing and not recommended.

Century?

reason?

Not strong enough juice to start my car if I left it for more than 4 days. The lifetime also cannot reach 3 yrs.

Varta Silver,its about RM500 but it can last forever

I bet nowadays standard range MF battery if can last more than 1.5yr is consider good already..

Yah, century marathoner.

Nope, I'm expecting 3 yrs if good. If 2-3 yrs then so-so only. If below 2 yrs then bad and I will never buy the same again. This Century was only 2 yrs plus and every time I have to jump start it whenever I left the car for 4 days or more, so yeah it sucks IMHO and that is the real deal breaker for me! So I won't buy this brand anymore unless emergency or got promo so the price is dirt cheap (which I think will never happen too)

Century lead acid MF batteries used to be good brand many years ago when MF batteries were kinda new in the market. I remember they only have the green label at that time. I'm agree with you century batteries are mostly crap now unless you are lucky enough to get a good unit.

how long does it nee to charged the battery??......let say we charged our battery every 6months.......sorry for stupid question........weighing the pro and con for getting this charger as my car's batteries are all around 1.5years now...... thanks

Depends also on the amperage of the charger , mine is 5 amps maximum so on average overnight is more than enough to bring the battery to full , mine are like DIn60 big batteries

If small NS like saga, wira, kancil , 4-5 hours also can reach full charge

My advise when choosing a charger , choose the biggest one that you can afford , definitely minimum 5 amps , go more if you can

This post has been edited by rcracer: May 18 2017, 09:43 AM

It is actually called "reconditioning" mode, not boost mode. No need to remove terminals, just charge like normal, no ill effects on all the cars that i ran with this mode.

No, it won't affect the electronics in the car. The battery itself already acts as a giant voltage regulator, just not a good idea to start the car with the charger still plugged in (although technically won't have any ill effects either, but just to be on the safe side). However, there is a version that can support jump start.

I bought mine a number of years ago for slightly below RM400 from RS components. Now RM500+ rather normal considering that RM depreciated significantly.

Here's the link that i used before : http://my.rs-online.com/web/p/battery-char...motive/7934092/

Can last at least 3 years if :
1) driven on high speed long distance frequently
2) put on a periodic maintenance charge with a dedicated lead acid battery charger

Depends on your battery condition, usually takes around 4-6 hours to complete the charging programme for smaller sized batteries. But for convenience sake, I just leave it overnight. If you want it faster, get the higher amperage version, but of course more expensive la...The device is automated, just plug in, select the charging mode and wait.

IMO, no need spend top dollar to get something like ctek..... there are cheaper alternatives available.... a quick search at lazada or lelong can give u an idea

i am using ctek and yokohama..... ctek is 4A rated and yoko is 10A.... both charge my batteries equally well.... yoko charges faster on bigger batteries like ns70

ctek is 9yrs old with defective board, cant change charge mode and yoko is 4yrs still tip top.... quality wise both ok to my standard

thanks a million for the info.......cheers

any link for yoko?? ......pricing, looking for something more affordable .......thanks in advance

My experience is that all known brand about the same. Sometimes this and sometimes that brands lasted longer.

Mine also no issue but these are basic efi cars not the latest greatest chock full of electronics , but ctek manual does say to disconnect battery if reconditioning

I have a Bosch C7 charger.

Recently I came across this prouduct - Battery Desulfator
Seems to be even better than a battery charger.

http://www.lazada.com.my/infinitum-12v-car...19800.html?ff=1

Any brand name charger works good , ctek is just the premium end of the spectrum

I would not bother with the desulphator, most likely it is just a unregulated high amp charger meant to overcharge a battery and call it de sulphate. You will need to constantly watch over it thst the water isn't dried off , overheats and catches fire

First of all sulphation occur on plates whenever the battery is used. Charging the battery would return the sulphate back to electrolyte. Overtime sulphate build up on plates and not reverseable that's why charging started to fail. Lead acid battery is best to top up charge and not left discharge.

I would say stay away from the device. When I see the testimony shows it has revived dead battery, that's a lie. It just like the Epsom salt myth. There's no way to really revive a dead battery (flat battery is fine but not dead battery). Meanwhile there's no way such a small device without relying on any AC power source could help to do enough desulphate process. It's probably just a simple voltage stablelizer with some small capacitors in it.

Can Ctek Mxs 5.0 charge most MF car batteries?

This post has been edited by lil_flank: May 18 2017, 12:16 PM

Waffak not even a plug in thing ?

Scam maximum
It charge ALL Mf batteries , 6v and 12v

Even does the AGM batteries which are advanced batteries most western countries are using already

Not only MF, normal wet type also can.

AGM type of batteries are not more advanced, the basic principle still same like normal lead acid battery, just that much denser. AGM batteries are the only ones that can be truly "revived" if the charge got fully depleted.

But damn heavy though, the AGM version that can fit in my car is 50% heavier than the unit that is currently inside my car

The real advanced ones are lithium type starter batteries, super light, only weighs 3-4kg. These are not those found in the battery pack of a hybrid car as the circuitry is different for fast charge/discharge. Good units starts at least from the price of a quarter of an Axia already...

This post has been edited by wkc5657: May 18 2017, 01:47 PM

Interesting, how do I do it ?

hmm......those fluid is it same as wet battery?

Just distilled water , I used spritzer blue label distilled water , much cheaper than battery water , exact same thing

yup, exactly the same.... the mf batteries are the same thing actually, just that they are sealed. Some you might notice, alot of them do have caps and look like the other typical batteries, straight forward. Those which dont seem to have caps do actually have them, they are hidden under the plastic cover above. To access the 'caps' break out the trusty screwdriver, and pry it open (pandai pandailah, dont ter-pry the entire lid open, bad bad idea)



**cukur can cari a video of the difficult ones.. thats as difficult as it gets, others with a completely flat top, iirc, those are just clip on covers.

all the while i tot those MF batteries are using different kinds of fluid so i do not dare to add distilled water into it

mine were not sealed as shown in the video, can see the caps and need to use flat head screw driver only. some of it is blocked by just sticker .

then i shall open it up and add in water then

thanks

perfect! those senang. i should note tho, i personally wouldn't open it up during the warranty period, after however, anything is fair game.

this battery changed during outstation trip where i got stuck on

epic is...warranty card got but without any address that i can refer to.

cannot use home address?

lul? wut?

the warranty allow me to fill in my personal particulars and there is NO COMPANY address i can sent the card in

Oh i see...

Maybe the company allows claim from any authorised reseller.

is some unknown brand and not sure where got authorised reseller

plus that time were stranded and no choice

Thanks mate. Another project for my wira.

they're the same lead acid battery.
nothing special about it.
cubans has been ghetto recycling the batteries themselves.

just get the cheapest stuff like century.
or if you want something special a smaller battery for maximum weight reduction.

This post has been edited by shirohamada: May 19 2017, 09:25 PM

what to do the car/battery if u gonna away for 3 weeks?

food for thought
-if u cabut, (which is technically best for the battery) your alarm system is als disabled, and you lose whatever non-volatile memory your car has in store
-if you leave it as is, well a good condition battery will drain slowly i guess...

so, end of the day, pick your poison.... I would rather replace a battery earlier than needed than lose my car or end up with stolen bits and repairs, but that's just me (not saying alarms are foolproof, but they certainly are helpful in being a deterrent)

p.s. iirc, lead acid batteries like to be fully charged unlike lithium batteries.

i've used:
yokohama MF
bosch S3+ (this one technically is the same as varta but at 60% of the price)
trane silver calcium battery (the most expensive of the bunch @ RM460)

all upsized (din52 - din66), all last ~15-18 months
now running on GS Yuasa DIN80, and i bit the bullet and got meself a CTEK MXS5, it'll be used to charge 4 vehicles so it'll repay itself in no time

i was advised to charge up every month (alot of short trips, and a massive 1KW amp was installed in my car)

observe during the charging process.... how long does take for the bulk charging stage

different charger may have different term for this but basically this stage charges until about 80% of battery capacity

if this stage takes a long time to proceed to absorption stage, your battery has been drained quite significantly, and you need to charge more often, say, once a week

This post has been edited by speedy3210: May 22 2017, 03:11 PM

Aiyo...already got charger, then why still upsize so much, unnecessary weight penalty only... But i think you need proper AGM battery like Odyssey or Optima batteries that can handle more charge and discharge cycles. Those normal or slightly premium range of MF batteries can't handle that much cycles. Proper AGM batteries can last the lifetime of your car if maintained properly.

For normal driving, charge once every 3 months also quite sufficient already. But i also hook up the charger on the first weekend of a new month to reduce the hassle of remembering the timing.

The charger itself will also need to monitor ambient temperature and internal resistance in your battery to avoid an electrical fire, so the timing will vary. The final stage is actually called trickle charge, that means the charger will reduce the output to top up the final 10%, or to maintain the battery (usually during prolonged storage or winter as cold temperature causes faster self discharge) Just like normal handphones, the final stage takes longer time. After bulk charging is done, good enough to unplug already.

If there are no electrical leaks or unknown phantom loads, if battery can't last for 3 months on normal driving without charging, the problem is at the battery, either it is a crap unit, on the verge of dying or the capacity is too low for the load required by the car.

tumpang thread...


how to know that the car alternator is charging the battery or not? any method other than using voltmeter.

I believe there is no other reliable way other than to have direct contact to test....

Maybe some other sifus can enlighten us.

This post has been edited by wkc5657: May 22 2017, 04:27 PM

when away for long period, of course car would be parked in an enclosed garage with gate secured/locked.. i don't mind disabling the car alarm.. looks like this would be a good 'poison'. plus, it is not an expensive car.. a very old moving vehicle. concern only on car not able to startup when back.

This post has been edited by spreeeee: May 22 2017, 04:33 PM

then yeah, remove one terminal (just pluck the -ve side) then make sure nmothing ic able to touch it (if you can cover the terminal with some sort of cover

i like to boom boom pow

anyways, it's a 80AMP battery in DIN66L, a so called DD80 wet cell, so no real difference in weight (besides, DIN55L is like 2Kgs less than DIN66L)

i usually hook it up on the 15th every month just to avoid the hassle, contis are more sensitive towards CCA, if the battery's weak, it'll crank slower for a month or two, then it'll stop working altogether, no real signs showing that the cell's weak

Bosch S3+ as I know, not same factory as Varta.
Bosch SM Mega Power now, currently made in South Korea.

Varta too but its from another factory. Same factory as Energizer and Delkor. I found that Varta the most affordable among the three brands that own by Johnson Controls. Also also cheaper than Hankook/Atlas BX/Koba which made in another Korea battery factory.


I tried charging battery that installed in a vehicle where the alternator is in great condition, it took just few minutes to fully charge the battery. I do not see much "charging" required in it, especially if the car being driven often. Its good for those who always park the car, and hardly drive them.

why not both?

if you are asking why that first? one at a time will do, i mean why create more sparks than necessary, and for obvious reasons, its safer to pull the -ve than the +ve (same reason why tou might notice, some ppl dont even bother to cover the -ve terminal but mati mati +ve kene tutup)

if you are asking why just one, well you only need to pull one to break the circuit, and unless you want to remove the battery, no point wasting your time having to disconnect and reconnect 2 poles when 1 is enough

alright, does this really able to save the battery to last for at least 3 weeks without starting the car?

meh unless you have some sort of parasitic drain, i wouldnt bother, keep in mind the alarm and stuff would be offline as well.

Is the battery from these shop reliable?


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