Replacing the battery - Die Hard Advanced Gold

[808MGuy]

Replaced my battery today with a Die Hard Advanced Gold battery. My original battery has been hanging on by a thread for about a month now but its been getting scary as every morning I see the low batt voltage warning popping up. So I decided to change it before I get stuck somewhere. Unfortunately, options for batteries were not plentiful around here. I could have either got OEM from the dealer, Die Hard Advanced Gold, Die Hard Gold, or Odyssey. The Die Hard Gold is not an AGM battery like the OEM so that was out. The Advanced is an AGM battery made by East Penn. Its a little bit cheaper than the Die Hard Platinums which are made by Odyssey but Sears doesn't have a Group 49 or 94R platinum. The Odyssey I was interested in was $330 from a local dealer which was almost 2x the price of the Die Hard Advanced. It did have a 5 year warranty vs the 3 year on the Die Hard but for twice the price I could buy 2 and be just as happy.

Now replacing the battery is a task that I wouldn't want to have to do often. The OEM battery weighs about 60 lbs but the Die Hard is pretty much the same. Trying to lift it out of the little well in the trunk is a bitch! Especially while trying to move all the wires out of the way. Putting it back in is even worse. I already ordered a Bav Technic tool to register the battery so that should be arriving in a week. Hopefully 1 week without registration won't have any effect on the battery which I don't expect it to.

http://www.sears.com/diehard-advance...9000P?prdNo=25

[THE TECH]

Hope it works out for you. When it comes to the battery and how sensitive the car is, I would only use OEM for this item.

[808MGuy]

Originally Posted by THE TECH

Hope it works out for you. When it comes to the battery and how sensitive the car is, I would only use OEM for this item.

Honestly, in my search for another battery, this one actually comes the closest to OEM in terms of CCA, and Ah. It's because East Penn also is one of the manufacturers who supplies the OEM battery. I believe Exide is the other manufacturer who supplies the OEM battery.

[MSteve5036]

My battery died and I was told I could get an interstate battery, which I did. Still got it calibrated at the dealership though. Didnt even know about the calibration at first so I ended up only saving like 50 bucks...not worth it and I would have just told them to do it.

[808MGuy]

Update on this. The die hard battery has been doing just fine. I didn't register it right away though. In fact, it wasn't until almost 5 months later that I registered it. This was due to the fact that Bav Technic sucks and can't make a product that's compatible to a modern computer. I went through the ringer with them until I finally returned the cable. Then I decided to just the cable that everyone uses for coding and setup my laptop. I was finally able to complete the battery registration about a couple weeks ago.

[apecush]

what was the stock A-h of the battery and what guide did you use for coding? I'm due for a battery replacement and have my OBD2 cable on the way from the land of cheap electronics, China.

[808MGuy]

Originally Posted by apecush

what was the stock A-h of the battery and what guide did you use for coding? I'm due for a battery replacement and have my OBD2 cable on the way from the land of cheap electronics, China.

I don't recall exactly what the capacity rating of the battery was but I want to say 90 Ah. The guide I used for coding is on the BMW Coding forum. I can't link it because the software for this forum won't allow me to link to that forum.

and this is the guide to the battery registration once you get the coding part setup

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=532315

Read the whole thread because you'll see that not all methods discussed are applicable to our cars.

[tom @ eas]

Originally Posted by 808MGuy

I don't recall exactly what the capacity rating of the battery was but I want to say 90 Ah. The guide I used for coding is on the BMW Coding forum. I can't link it because the software for this forum won't allow me to link to that forum.

and this is the guide to the battery registration once you get the coding part setup

http://www.e90post.com/forums/showthread.php?t=532315

Read the whole thread because you'll see that not all methods discussed are applicable to our cars.

Kudos to doing the research and sharing your info with the forum.

Be sure to register the battery as a non-AGM type if an older battery is still being used, post #16 has the variations listed.

Here's a short tech article I posted a whole back on AGM batteries and registration: http://www.e90post.com/forums/showpo...5&postcount=24

[808MGuy]

One other thing I wanted to add. After I switched out the battery I called around to find out if anyone would take my old battery in for recycling. A lot of the places I called wanted to charge me a recycling fee but Sears was willing to just take it at no charge.

[apecush]

Great, thanks. Around here, most places sell you a battery and include a core charge, refundable on the return of your old battery.

That is shady that places are trying to charge to recycle the battery. Nothing like encouraging people to dispose of hazardous material in landfills.

[808MGuy]

Originally Posted by apecush

Great, thanks. Around here, most places sell you a battery and include a core charge, refundable on the return of your old battery.

That is shady that places are trying to charge to recycle the battery. Nothing like encouraging people to dispose of hazardous material in landfills.

As far as I know, Sears did not charage me a core charge when I purchased the battery unless it is built into their price because there was no separate line item on the invoice. When I called Sears to recycle the battery, they didn't even know that I had bought a Die Hard battery since I called a different store. They said it didn't matter if I bought a battery from them or not, just bring it down and they'll take it. They had me just drive right up to their battery replacement driveway, they unloaded the old battery from my trunk and I drove off without getting dirty.