Got a new battery for my car jump starter. The typical 12V 18AH high rate type. Got the Batteryguy brand since it is cheaper. BGH-12180NB / BCH-12180NB. Date code ended in 21. Tested at 13AH @ 10hr instead of 18! Got 1 BGH-1290F2 / BCH-1290F2 (high rate) and 3 BG-1290F2 / BC-1290F2. They sent me 4 BCH-1290F4 all dated 1021. Tested two at 6.2 AH @10hr instead of 8AH. Got 2 BC-645 dated 1221.
All the batteries arrived with low charge Voltage. Capacity at arrival was below 25% on the 5 that I tested, which means they were discharged and returned or stored for close to a year without charge. I also bought 3 PowerSonic batteries from them which had 2023 date codes and those arrived charged.
I returned all the bad ones and they refunded me but they deny that anything is wrong. I’m still stuck paying for all the shipping. A 2021 battery would need to be charged 3 to 6 times by now depending on storage temperature to prevent storage damage. Customer support said they “charged up fully”. Well what about discharging fully? Customer support was defensive about anything being wrong. Said getting 3 BCH-1290F2 instead of BC-1290F2 was an “upgrade”. Yeah an upgrade to a sulfated battery that is a year past the normal sell by date. Said that they hardly get any returns on these batteries. I know that most people do not have the time nor the means to properly test electronics when they get them, so I believe that.
batteryguy.com is still linking to a datasheet for a premium version of a normal battery on their website despite me calling them and telling them about this several weeks ago.
Somebody out there is going to be getting my returned batteries, probably fairly soon. This may very well be what happened to me.