Battery Death

It really pains me to say that I have given up on Paccar Dual-Purpose truck batteries. Simply put, my car murders them VERY quickly. I have spend the last week crunching numbers on various battery options. I need to do something fast or I will be walking to work. I have two good group 31 AGMs in my pack and another [identical] AGM running my accessories.

Option 1: Lithium. $3839 for 100aH (including HST sales tax) + shipping. That's WAY more than the amount I have into the car so far.

Option 2: Walmart Marine Batteries. 10 X $1000 + HST = $1120. A cheap pack, but are they going to last any longer than my current style batteries? I doubt it.

Option 3: I found out that the Paccar (did I mention that I work at a Paccar truck dealership??) BA29D51 AGM "Dual Purpose" battery is made by East Penn/Deka (Same as MK) and is a 8A27 (group 27). I can buy them at cost for $147/ea, and then I only need 9 because I can use all three of my current AGMs. That totals $1482.

What have I chosen?

Paccar AGMs, option 3. And I'm pretty excited. I know I have now blown the budget away but at least I will get the performance bonus of AGMs. For those of you who don't know, AGMs have FAR less voltage sag than floodies, and FAR less peukert effect, meaning more range with less aH. They also do not quickly go bad when left with less than a full charge. These 8A27s are 92aH X 2 X 72 = 13.25 kWh.

I took delivery of two of them yesterday (the rest are on backorder) and replaced my weakest pair with them. The drive home revealed how strong they really are. Close to home 3/4 of the way up the hill, all floodie pairs were at 9.0-10.0V (wide open throttle), my original AGM pair was at 11.2V and my new AGM pair was at 11.3V. I am excited for next week when everything stays above 11V at WOT!