I have a very low compression motor 8:0:1, and the car is not winter driven. Does this mean I can buy the smallest battery out there? Does battery size affect anything or does the alternator do all the work? It is a 120V alternator.

Thanks
Andy

 

Auto,

I have a philosophy about car batteries. For the few dollars difference in price, it's been my experience that it's best to get the physically largest battery that will fit in the space and has the correct terminations. Even if the CCA ratings are the same as a physically smaller battery, there is more electrolyte in the larger battery due to the increased cell cavity size. This means more reserve capacity, and probably longer battery life due to decreased stress on the plates and terminations from undervoltage while cranking.

If you need the extra space, go with the smaller one, but be prepared to replace it a little sooner. (Mine is a garage-queen, too).

 

Good question. I have fooled around with a lot of different brands of batteries and have found the AC DELCO to be proably one of the most dependable out there. In my business over the years I have had to keep remote radio transmitters on line during commercial power failures. My company has experminted with a lot of different lead-acid batteries. We have found the AC battery to be very reliable over a range of parameters. I am not implieing that you cannot get a decent aftermarket batt. , however the OE suppliers are requiered to supply sample tests of production units. Most aftermarket suppliers do not require testing so you can get a good one or a bad one. They only respond to the vendor when warranty claims reach a certain point. Who GM uses at any given time is anyones guess, but you can be pretty certain that you will get a better product than at a random auto parts store. It is really a shame that the very thing that made GM desirable is soon to dissapear. At one point they owned almost every company that supplied parts to thier cars. Air conditioning was Harrison, radios were Delco, transmissions Saginaw etc, etc etc. Under these circumstances quality control is fairly easy to maintain. Because of marketing concerns I think Delco will probably swing towards this Delphi group. There reason is to be a supplier to more than GM cars. After all who wants to buy a Ford with an AC Delco alternator? Buy an ACDElCO batt. and you will be fine for the next five years.

 

Ford owners have been getting GM parts for over 20 years now. Saginaw started deliverng PS pumps to Dearborn at least by 1978, among other things. I agree that you may see more of the "masked divestiure" that has been happening at GM over the next several years, but rest assured it's still GM. When A.T.& T "split up", do you think that Lucent, Southern Bell, Bell Labs, Western Bell, and all the other new entities didn't still report to A.T.&T.? It's a little like Mitsubishi and Three Diamonds Foods group, or Ford and LOF glass.