jbird

Ah, I did not realize that. I thought you could order things from AA, Oreilly and Autozone to be picked up but looking, it seems maybe not batteries? It's getting so common elsewhere like HD or Lowe's, I kind of just assumed.

I know what you mean about shipping abuse. Although, back in the day I know how much abuse we subjected pallets full of heavy items to so maybe consumer shipping wouldn't be any worse. You could give it a shot and return if not satisfied...

Returning Online Purchases to an Advance Auto Parts Store

Online purchases can be returned to any Advance Auto Parts store within 45 days from the date of purchase. Bring original packaging and your receipt, Order Confirmation email or Merchandise Return Form. All refunds will be credited back to you via the same payment method used for your original order. Shipping and handling charges are not refundable except in case of returns due to our error.

Redd

The policies of online merchants vary, and sometimes even vary depending on how you access their web pages. For instance, I went to Walmart.com to check the price on something that the store kept having a stocking problem with. Retail price. then I went to search for "buy ...." the product by name. And one of the first hits was to buy it at Walmart.com, at 25% off MSRP. Dirty little secret, many web merchants dynamically build pages depending on your cookies and who/where they think you are.

But in my case with AA, I did order the battery online for local pickup, from the inventory that was in stock at a local store. I'm not sure whether they count that as "ship to store" or just "hold one in stock"...but all of this stuff varies.

When I went looking for coolant, I found one bottle, and only one bottle, at any local Autozone, and none that was Audi approved anywhere else. When I tried my local store, the district manager was there, and he said "That's been discontinued along with...." a hole other greatly discounted shelf. And yet, folks a couple of states away said it was very much in stock, available (at 3x the price) at their local stores.

Go figure. Welcome to "dynamic pricing" and marketing.

Bob Petruska

When you order from AA online and want to pick up at store, the item must be in stock at the store or the option to pick it up at store is not available on the purchase page, only the ship to home option.

I picked up my battery today and that is one very large battery and very heavy. Sort of an overkill for the Q5. And it does have the vent port of the top for the Q5 vent hose attachment.

Redd

If I was racing, I'd use a 20Ah lithium battery and just replace it as needed. But I've always preferred to go oversize in car batteries, an extra 10-20# versus having a dead battery from an electrical glitch, or a winter day as it ages, just isn't something I want. Basically, no matter what they say, the more AH the battery capacity, the less deeply it sill be cycled, and that increases the lifetime expectancy geometrically, not just linearly. And then again, oddly enough batteries of very different capacities are often sold at the same price. The battery I put into my old '68 Mustang was actually stock for a fully loaded Lincoln Continental. (The guy said "What size do you want?" and I said "What's the biggest one you've got?")

Now I'll bet you're glad you didn't find an H9 for it.(G)

Bob Petruska

Not really, as the H8 size is a beast itself to wrestle into the Q5. I assume that the H9 is a larger battery. I'm not going to look up the H9 size or differences as I really don't care about it at this point.

I'm charging the new H8 on the floor with my C-TEK charger to get some CCA, internal Resistance, etc. baseline measurements using my hand held Solar device, and then see what readings I get with VCDS after I place it in the Q5.

Redd

Interesting, I hadn't thought of documenting it that way before the install. There's still plenty of room in the battery compartment though.

jbird

I've had a CTEK charger for probably 15 years. It's done a good job as I can tell. But I always kind of assumed Deltran would be my next one.

Bob, is CTEK your charger of choice?

Redd

jbird-
My impression of the Deltran "Battery tender" product line is that they are dumb chargers. Fixed outputs really designed just for simple maintenance charging, while the C-Tek are a more expensive line of products that interact with a battery for more effective charging and conditioning. C-Tek is more comparable to the Noco Genius products, I believe. At least, back when I had asked Deltran directly, they said the "battery tender" products were all simple fixed output. Nothing wrong with that for simply charging a battery under human control, but not something you can just hook up and walk away from either, for the best results.

HamOnRye

Bob,

Very timely thread for me as I'm considering replacing the battery in my '15 S5. OEM is an H9 flooded-lead-acid Moll, but I want an AGM replacement for all the hot-weather driving I do in the Southwest. After all my research, I've decided to go with the Autocraft Platinum H9-AGM made by Johnson Controls. Great price with the 25% discount (I used OFFERS25 online) and the specs are comparable to OEM. It's available for pickup at my local CarQuest store. I was unsure if it had a vent tube plug, so I was relieved to hear that your H8 platinum does. I'm hoping the H9 is no different.

Some questions for you:
1) In another AudiWorld thread, an Autocraft H9-AGM buyer said that he found a BEM code sticker after peeling away the "DANGER/ACID" warning. Is that true for your H8 too? That would make coding a breeze!
2) When you picked up at Advance Auto, what manufacture date was on the battery? Was it fairly new? I'm not sure how popular the H9 is, and I don't want to get stuck with old stock. I figure it should be no more than 6 months old.
3) Did you return your old battery for the core charge? I'd like to keep mine since it still has some life in it. I'm wondering if they'll accept any old piece of crap as a core, or whether they're strict about an identical return.
4) Does your CTEK charger have 'Supply Mode' setting? I've been reading that it may not be a good idea to use a charger as a backup for battery removal if it doesn't have that feature (my CTEK 4.3 does not). I plan to run jumper cables from a friend's car to my underhood connectors during the swap-out.

Redd

Ham-
I can't speak for CarQuest but most places will take anything "close" for the core charge. And since you can often pick up the new battery and "bring in the old one tomorrow"...you know, they're not going to really look it over.
Any charger, especially a "smart" charger, might be too smart and do something like use pulsed DC, or interrupt the DC, and that could insult the car's computer. So even with a "supply mode"....do you really want to know how they programmed that? Or, just hook up some jumpers and be sure about things?
There's a long thread somewhere here about exploring for BEM codes and the programming. Bottom line we found? It is all FUD, just put in some numbers that keep the car happy, apparently they don't really DO anything with them, except confirm your warranty date if anyone looks for it.