What Is The Best Battery To Buy

[buddygr53]

Ordered my new mercury motor. 200 pro xs. I need a new battery of 1000 cca. What is the best battery to buy.

[motoman]

Over the years, I've read the sears PM-1 is the way to go for larger cca's. Not cheap; but it seems to get great reviews.

[merc1997 Bo]

i will give my two cents. this from experience since i was in the auto parts business for eons. the battery manufacture that we had the least warranty come backs was East Penn. our warranty return with them was less than 2%. that means when you sold a battery, you never saw it come back. East Penn supplies batteries to CarQuest and O'Reilly. They are the only batteries that held up for my trolling motor batteries. I usually got 4 to 5 years out of a set of group 31 trolling batteries when i fished all the time. you do have to check the water on trolling batteries and keep them topped off. a cranking battery will be a sealed battery. hope this might help.

bo

[fishinwrench]

I like the Exide Nautilus 1000 but I don't recommend trying to get 4+ years out of it. 3 at best, and that's pushing it.

Having a good fresh battery connected to the newer EFI/DFI outboards is extremely important.

As a friend I'd rather see you cut corners on fuel quality and stop with the bull$#it additives than trying to get 4-5 years out of a battery, regardless of which brand it is.

[Dutch]

I have a 225 Opti and also need good CCAs. I went the route of 1000 CCA wet cells and they did fine until I started adding electronics. I have 2 Lowrance hds 8 units with 2 lss boxes. When I would run the aerator by late afternoon my units would shut down when I fired the Opti up. That was because the voltage was dropping below 11 volts. This was happening with a 13 month old 1000 CCA from the local auto parts store. They would not help me with this so I went to Sears and dropped a few bills for the PM 1 AGM battery. It came with a no hassel three year warranty and has been going strong for 2 years now. It has 1150 CCA and being agm no maintenance. When it dies it will be replaced my one just like it. I don't cut corners on batteries as they are the most important tool that I have.

[Golf Pro]

I agree. The Sears Platinum with 1150 cca is the way to go.

[fishinwrench]

Everybody watches their tach all the time but the most important guage on your dash is the VOLTMETER that is normally installed where you can't hardly see it. LOL

A little tip: Most LCG units have a digital voltage readout option. Turn that baby ON, as it's usually more accurate than the analog guage most boats are equipped with.

Voltage drops under 10v while cranking and/or operating the trim,, OR,, Voltage climbs of more than 14.5v while running indicate a problem brewing.

[champ198]

Sears PM-1 for me. (225 optimax + two humminbird 998s).

[buddygr53]

Thanks all this helps

[Fishin Hodge]

Just pulled the PM-1 from Sear's up online, since so many people have said its great, but holy crap for a 3 bill it oughta be.

That is a little rich for my blood, I have decent luck with AutoZone Batteries, for a little more than a 1/3 of the price. Only 1000 CCA, but I'll just to have to deal with that for the price difference.