BoatBanter.com - $21.00 happiness....

On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 12:28:05 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/20/2018 12:14 PM, wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 11:23:15 -0400, Keyser Soze
wrote:

On 3/20/18 11:05 AM, wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 08:26:57 -0400, "Mr. Luddite"
wrote:

On 3/20/2018 7:55 AM, Keyser Soze wrote:
On 3/19/18 6:53 PM, Tim wrote:
The battery is shot in my moto Guzzi. Went out when I parked it last
November. It came from Walmart too and didnâ€™t have but about 6 months
in it.Â* I probably could have taken it in and got another but no need
to let it sit over the winter and get stale too. So I let it sit all
winter.

I noticed that Walmart had a fresh load of batteries on a pallet.
Brand new dated 2/18.Â*Â* Thatâ€™s for me!

Had to go back to town this evening so I pulled the old battery for
core and away I went. Got it, installed it and here goes. Hit the
button and it fired right off. I could but a genuine Guzzi battery for
5 times as much and maybe get 3 years out of it. Iâ€™ve even thought of
a NiCd Battery , but those are ridiculously high.

So here I am back with El Cheapo.Â*Â* Life is good...

Wow. You spend $9 less onÂ* motorcycle batteries than I do on the
batteries for my lawn & garden tractor. Of course, I wouldn't buy
toothpaste from Walmart.

You think the Crest or Colgate sold at Walmart is different than
that sold anywhere else?

Don't you know? Walmart gets theirs from Chinese slave labor camps but
if you go to Giant it is all union made in a boutique factory in
Connecticut. That is why it costs twice as much.

In many cases, products are made especially for walmart and tend to be
chintzier than the products carried by other stores. I doubt if this
applies to toothpaste, though.

I doubt it applies to any branded product. Why would anyone put their
name on an inferior product, no matter where it gets sold. In fact
most "store brand" are basically the same as the branded product. I do
agree Walmart does bring in a lot of junk to hit a price point but it
generally will not have a brand name on it that you have ever heard
of.
In the case of batteries, Johnson Controls makes Walmart batteries and
they have their name right there. Since there are really only a few
companies that make batteries under hundreds of brand names they tend
to just be commodity items. You can use the warranty as a guide to
quality but the battery I just replaced was a Walmart "2 year" battery
and it was 10 years old. I probably could have nursed another year out
of it but why bother? It was in a truck we seldom drive so it needs to
be able to hold a charge. It was a little sluggish turning over after
sitting about a month and I decided it was time. I did manage to get
the truck started but it was one of those miracle starts where it was
either going to fire or start clicking ;-)

The thing I like about Walmart is if you do have a battery fail within
the warranty it is a no hassle return. I think you could take one in
with a bullet hole in it and they would give you a new one.
(For Walmart, that night not even be unusual)

Used to get a kick out of the ads and perceived great reputation of the
Sears "Diehard" batteries. They are nothing more than a Johnson
Controls battery and previously Exide batteries, depending on who Sears
contracted with.

Again it is still all about the warranty. Sears was as good as Walmart
about a no questions asked replacement. One of my old Md buddies used
to use Die Hards in his drag racer. It did not even have a charging
system. He ran them all weekend on a single charge and throw it on the
charger before the next weekend's racing. Sometimes he ran them flat
down. They did not last long but he just threw it on the counter at
Sears and they gave him a new one.