Costco's Interstate GC2 Battery Story

[Moonwink]

My battery saga started when two of my four 6 year old Interstate GC2 batteries failed. My volt meter showed zero volts on two of them. They came with our Trek when we bought it in late 2014. They were dated in mid summer 2014. I figured I’d replaced them with 4 more Interstate GC2 batteries from Costco based on the service they gave me so I pulled them out, drove them over to Costco and exchanged them for 4 new ones (the core charge of $15/battery was waived because I gave them old batteries). $394.31 out the door. I brought them home and put them on charge while I cleaned and painted the battery compartment. The next day, I greased the posts with dielectric grease and put them in making sure to put the jumpers and watering system back in just like I found them. All was well. Everything worked and the inverter panel simmered down to idle. I was all done! At least I thought I was.

A friend asked me if I’d read the reviews on these batteries on Costco’s website. I hadn’t seen them because Costco’s website doesn’t make them visible on the same page they show the battery. In fact, they don’t show any reviews for this battery – unless you poke around a little. Here’s the link to the reviews: https://www.costco.com/interstate-6-vol ... 76406.html
I read through them and learned that 17 of the 25 reviews were only one star and those reviewers had very bad luck with these batteries. Many said they didn’t last a year before needing replacement.

So, back to Costco. At the desk I gave them a lot of grief about the lousy reviews that were showing for the batteries I just bought. The fellow in the auto dept where I went next said I could return the batteries anytime during their 12 month warranty – no questions asked. All I’d have to say is I wasn’t satisfied. At that time I was told my old batteries had already been picked up but they would refund the core charge instead. He said it didn’t bother him that 17 out of 25 people reviewing these batteries only gave them one star because only people that had a bad experience were likely to leave a review. I laughed at him but he may not have been able to tell with my mask on.


I’m a frugal guy that doesn’t like to waste money on buying the best if it’s not necessary, I saw the light after reading the reviews! I’d always wanted a set of Trojan T-105s and had asked years ago while buying a battery for my mower at the Continental Battery warehouse near me if they carried Trojan golf cart batteries. They did and their price wasn’t bad (this was several years ago). I went by there again the day after visiting Costco to see if they would still sell to me directly. They said sure and quoted a price of $145 cash (He said they retail for $165). Core charge jumped to $29 apiece though. $174 outright without a core. They only had two Trojan T-105 batteries on hand but expected a skid of them to come in the next day. I bought the new Trojan batteries when they came in – 4 at $145 + $29 core = $174 x 4 = $696 (Ouch!).

The next day I took the Interstate batteries back to Costco and that’s when the trouble started. They didn’t have my old batteries to give me back and they refused to return the $15 core charge for the old batteries. Their logic was because the core charge was a wash at the time I purchased their batteries, they couldn’t return something they didn’t charge me for. My argument was they took something of value from me and I wanted it back. If they couldn’t give me the batteries, give the money they credited me on the sales slip for the core charge. I dealt with the regular guy at the auto desk first. Then he got his supervisor who wouldn’t budge either. Then the supervisor got the store manager who couldn’t understand why I was asking for compensation for the old batteries I’d turned in. By this time, I’m yelling and screaming how I was getting screwed out of the core charges! This dance went on at least 20 minutes before the auto department supervisor gave in just to get rid of me. I thanked him kindly, grabbed the return receipt, and got out of there before he changed his mind. Overall, A very bad experience. When I first talked to them about returning the batteries I specifically asked about the getting my batteries or the core charges back. The fellow I talked to told me they’d already been picked up but he never took the time to go look. I would have rather had those batteries to exchange for the Trojans and got full credit for them. The automotive supervisor told the store manager the cores had just been picked up the day before so there may have been a chance to get them back if the fellow I spoke to first had taken the time to look for them when I asked about returning.

I still need to put the Trojans in which I’ve gotten pretty good at (I don’t have a slide tray) but hooking up the jumpers is still a pain. I have to work from the pictures I took before I touched them to make sure they’re right.

An alternative to the Trojans that sound interesting are Crown batteries. Their Crown CR 235 battery sounds very comparable to the Trojan T-105 and the cost is better – if you can find a Crown Battery dealer, I couldn’t. The Crown website isn’t much good without giving them your contact information and I didn’t want to do that.
Crown CR 235 = 235 AH at 20 Hour Rate, 63 lbs, 18 month warranty, $15 core charge.
https://deepcyclebatterystore.com/crown ... t-battery/

One question that’s bothering me – the posts on the Trojans are date stamped “J0” J is the 10th letter of the alphabet. From what I’ve learned, batteries are stamped with a date code for the month they were shipped. The first digit is a letter representing the month – A=1, B=2, C=3 and so on. My question is how could I have batteries with a date code of October 2020 in September? I’ll be running that by Continental the day after Labor Day.

[TDJohn]

Don,

It is simple, on their site they state that the $15 core charge is not included in the price ($98.99), which means that they are essentially charging $113.99 and they give you a credit for your old batteries, as they make money on recycling them (lead). So if they couldn't or didn't want to produce the old batteries, they are supposed to refund you $113.99 per battery. It is the same concept if you return a brake caliper, you get refunded the caliper and the core.

I wish you would have mentioned battery needs here, before you went shopping, you would have received good feedback on the group. In fact, there was very recent discussion regarding brand of golf cart batteries on here, when Bob was looking for replacement batteries. It still might be helpful to search and read that info for the future. BTW, if you have enough height in your battery compartment, Crown makes a 260 amp/hr battery (CR 260), they are only a tiny bit taller then the standard T105 or CR235. I am using those and they have been exceptional. That extra bit of capacity really makes a difference for my needs, without needing to expand to a six battery bank. To be fare, even though the costco and samsclub batteries are really cheap, many batteries don't live long because they get mistreated, neglected, and abused more often than not. They key reason for this is unintended ignorance, even in this day and age with plenty of info out there. Under proper care, cheap GC batteries should last about 5 years and top shelf batteries like Crown and Trojan should last 10+ years. I would suggest reading handy Bob Solar's blog, especially they article titled "the battery charging puzzle". It is very informative on needs and use proper use and charging of GC batteries. His blog is: www.handybobsolar.com

Moral of the story...you get what you pay for.
Also, as we get older, sometimes the headaches that come with being excessively frugal is not worth it, as there are much better things to do with or finite time...

PS: Trojan specs higher charging voltages and temperature compensation, so be sure to reprogram your charger for the batteries needs, to achieve maximum battery life and performance. Trojan has the specs on their website. If you do a lot of boondocking/dry camping, I would strongly recommend a shunt based battery monitor/meter. It is much more accurate and gives you a better picture on what is going on with your batteries and how much power you are truly using and how much you are putting back in. Very often batteries get undercharged and most don't even know it.

[Moonwink]

Thanks for your response John,
Refunding the core fee sounds simple enough to me but the three people I dealt with at Costco couldn't understand why I asked and later demanded I be credited with. They acted like it vaporized when I paid for their batteries. I told them over and over they took something of value and sold it to the battery recycler and were trying to screw me out of it by saying I had nothing coming back for the cores I gave them. They refused to give me a refund for the cores and I told them to give me back my batteries over and over till I finally wore them down. They never did accept the fact that my core batteries had any value after their bill showed I wasn't charged a core charge (because I gave them my old batteries!).

I don't boondock much which is why I was attracted to the Interstate batteries at Costco. I figured on them lasting at least as long as the Interstate batteries batteries I was replacing - until I read the reviews. It was then I decided I'd better not beat a dead horse and make the switch while I could. The only time we boondock is a couple of weeks at Quartzsite while we're out there for the show and Trek gathering and at FMCA rallies - neither of which do we do on any kind of regular basis and I carry an inverter generator for those times. I prefer to find a Passport America CG and spend the night there with hookups when we're on the move.

I've got a 2000w Xantrex 458 Freedom Power Inverter that came with the (2004) Trek. Any recommendations on how to set it for these 4 batteries? I'm pretty sure the old batteries were being overcharged as they'd take 1/2 a gallon of water every month till I stepped through the settings and tried to match the settings to the batteries. They stopped using water but died a couple of months later. Never did figure out how to "equalize" the batteries without damaging all the 12v stuff on the MH. The manual doesn't address how to protect the 12v system while the equalizer puts out up to 16v for several hours.

I've installed the Flow-Rite watering system because there's no way I could see the level in the rear batteries or attempt to add water to them. It's so much easier to squeeze the bulb!

I guess the recent post here about batteries is where I heard about the Crown batteries. I tried several searches for Crown Battery dealers around me but found nothing and by that time, I was committed to the Trojans. The $145 price for the Trojans seemed in the ball park and buying them cash included all the taxes and extra disposal fees Costco listed on their bill.

[TDJohn]

Don,

Older batteries tend to use more water, but a failed battery(s) will cause the good batteries to get overcharged and boil out. Being that you use a watering system, it doesn't allow you to see that certain batteries are using a lot of water and one or two batteries use very little. Those discrepancies help one find the bad battery in the bunch.

Also, the inverter make and model that you have has a neat feature that allows the inverter charger to also act as a converter with a maximum output capacity of a whopping 100amps. But this neat feature has a drawback, when a battery fails, it can call for more charge, with the 100amp capacity in converter/float mode, this ends up boiling out and over heating the good batteries awful quickly. This is likely why your batteries failed in a somewhat drastic way.

Unfortunately your inverter/charger can't be programmed to a customized charge voltage, but it is adequately within range to satisfy the needs of the Trojan T-105s, programmed to wet cell charging. If you mostly camp while plugged into shore power, and you find that you are using too much water, you can program the inverter/charger to AGM charging, this will lower the float voltage a bit, which will lessen water consumption. Use your owners manual if you need to change the charge settings.

[Moonwink]

Setup Mode.jpg (46.94 KiB) Viewed 4637 times

I have the inverter (Xantrex Freedom 458 2000w) set as follows:
SET AHRS: 400 AH (4 Trojan T-105 / 225 AH @ 20 HR = 450 AH connected in series parallel)
SET IDLE: 458 Default = 5 watts
SET TYPE: 458 Series Default = Wet Cell

I don't see any other options to set. The choice for AHRS is either 400 or 500. I went with the lower number. There's not much explanation in the manuals.

[TDJohn]

Never did figure out how to "equalize" the batteries without damaging all the 12v stuff on the MH. The manual doesn't address how to protect the 12v system while the equalizer puts out up to 16v for several hours.

I just realized that I missed one of your key questions. If you are concerned about higher voltage during the equalize cycle, you could shut off 12v power to the house side of your coach, using the house disconnect switch. This will isolate the high battery voltage from the coach while your equalizing.
That said, my personal experience confirmed what Handy Bob Solar stated in his blog, that contrary to the beliefs among the RV world, that the higher voltage (I've had mine as high as 16.5v) does not damage the 12v items in your RV. During equalize, I've had the voltage hit 16.5v on many occasions and I never burned anything up nor damaged anything. The only minor issue I would get is the steps would get wonky, extend and retract rapidly when the voltage got too high. Shutting them off while retracted would stop that issue. This has been my experience, but you decide on your own, what you want to do. Also note, Xantrex equalizes for eight hours, that is too excessive. If you don't boondock much, I would suggest to equalize at the beginning of the season, if you don't use your rig full time, and at the end of the season. Equalize only for 1 to 2 hours.
If you do boondock a lot, equalize as soon as practical, after you had a really deep discharge, and especially if the deep discharge happened of a few days, meaning the batteries sat discharged for multiple days not overnight. Under these conditions, equalize 2hrs. If it's really hot, shorten the time by roughly an hour, if it is really cool, extend the equalize time by an hour plus, depending how cold it is.

Regarding your last post, unfortunately the Xantrex Freedom 458 does not allow to customize charge voltages, so your current settings should be adequate, as long as your equalize every once in a while. If your mostly plugged in, then you can get away with equalizing once a year.

[Moonwink]

Thanks for the reply John,
Xantrex could certainly provide a lot more information in their manuals (or anywhere else). I like knowing what I'm doing and the theory behind it This is my first MH with an inverter and I haven't used it for much of anything but keeping the batteries charged as a result of lack of information.

[TDJohn]

Thanks for the reply John,
Xantrex could certainly provide a lot more information in their manuals (or anywhere else). I like knowing what I'm doing and the theory behind it This is my first MH with an inverter and I haven't used it for much of anything but keeping the batteries charged as a result of lack of information.

Don,

There is not much to it. Only a few outlets will be powered up by the inverter and some 120v lights. If you are boondocking, use the inverter as needed, minding at what state of charge your batteries are. If you need to use heavy loads, like coffee pot, micro wave, or hair dryer, make sure it is only one high draw item at a time and for short duration. When I used that model inverter, it pretty much ran everything with out issue, except inductive motors, as they get awful hot and can get damaged because of the modified sign wave power output.