The marine world turned me on to NOCO. Very commonly recommended.
Yeah it's funny, the Powersports world turned me on to the 2 brands I mentioned. Back before Amazon tried spoon feeding you recommendations, i recall reading hundreds of pages of battery threads in different bike forums trying to figure out what was the best charger for these new high tech LIPO batteries for bikes that had long storage periods. Ctek and optimate were commonly suggested, not so much NOCO.
I don’t have a strong opinion on NOCO. I know Schumacher is considered to be very good and they go way back. My NOCO jump starter has worked well and the charger seems to work unless it’s actually not working. I’m trusting lights on it. But as a general observation I totally agree, it’s an online hype brand. Maybe the hype is organic and well deserved. Maybe not. It’s really hard to discern the provenance of anything anymore, or its quality. Throw YouTube influencers into the mix and it gets even more muddled. I bought a 70mai dashcam based on the recommendation of a well known overlanding YouTuber whose reviews and content I generally like and it’s been a disaster.
Well said, we are in a enshitification period with a race to the bottom.
Purchasing based on price, I'd buy Schumacher over NOCO since Schumacher is cheaper.
I agree with everything you stated here regarding Chinese vs American vs whowhereeverelse. Quality, IMO, is become equal across the board now-a-days. I've had just as much 'Murica made fail as I have anything else.I don’t have a strong opinion on NOCO. I know Schumacher is considered to be very good and they go way back. My NOCO jump starter has worked well and the charger seems to work unless it’s actually not working. I’m trusting lights on it. But as a general observation I totally agree, it’s an online hype brand. Maybe the hype is organic and well deserved. Maybe not. It’s really hard to discern the provenance of anything anymore, or its quality. Throw YouTube influencers into the mix and it gets even more muddled. I bought a 70mai dashcam based on the recommendation of a well known overlanding YouTuber whose reviews and content I generally like and it’s been a disaster.
I’ve been otherwise happy with my unambiguously and unapologetically Chinese products from DJI, Bambu Labs and EcoFlow. My Zero Breeze AC(based in Texas, but made in China) was total junk and badly translated from Chinese, stuck in Celsius, unlike the openly Chinese EcoFlow which has no such translation issues. Renogy is accused of repackaging Chinese products which is ironic, since it’s not a secret that they’re Chinese. I’ve been satisfied with their stuff in my truck and camper. I’ve been happy with my Fanttik and Vevor products, two quintessential “Amazon” brands. I’ve been impressed with Harbor Freight stuff, when applying realistic expectations. “Harbor” being the key word as it’s basically all Chinese knockoff products.
At the same time I’ve got over $20k invested in 2 top of the line Trek bicycles, engineered in Waterloo Wisconsin, but both made in Cambodia because even Chinese labor rates are too high for this iconic American company. I love these bikes, but I had to essentially remanufacture both of them up from the frames because of the shotty assembly and I am systematically warrantying all my top of the line (German) SRAM stuff as it fails. I’ve snapped two chains in the middle of the plates, on my MTB just this year. I feel like there’s a flattening of quality across brands going on, but not in a good way.
There’s just no clarity on what’s good, what’s bad, who’s review is legit, whether an American product is just a repackaged Chinese product, whether a Chinese product is just the debranded American product coming out of the same factory. Every company is making stuff overseas, increasingly in less developed countries than China and everyone seems to be cutting costs. You can find true American or AmeriCanExican products if you are willing to pay $$$. My Industry Nine wheel hubs were built in Asheville NC and the rims in BC, but they cost $2500 for a set of wheels.
There’s no clarity from reviews anywhere anymore. It’s all payola or AI. It’s really hard to tell what you’re buying anymore and whether you’re trapped in an algorithm-induced hype cycle. The mechanisms to create the impression of legitimacy and even organic reviews are really powerful. There’s an entire multibillion dollar SaaS ecosystem revolving around turning legitimately happy customers into passive advocates and burying negative “impressions.” How many folks here are harassed by requests to review your recently purchased products or get that email to complete the purchase when you put stuff in an online shopping cart? You can’t escape it. Almost every single website, that’s not Amazon, now is powered by Shopify and all the data they collect is being used to juke the algorithms across the entire internet. This even exists for politicians, doctors and college professors. You can’t trust a review of a doctor any more than you can trust the star rating of a product on Amazon. Post modern philosophers in the mid 20th century had no idea how far we’d move towards a post-truth society or how sophisticated the mechanisms to sustain it would be. Their predictions seem quaint at this point. So who knows. Maybe my NOCO has been quietly killing my batteries. Maybe all the batteries are just shit now.
There's quite a few of us Ram EcoDiesel guys running Odyssey. So far, I haven't heard any complaints. I had my 2015 EcoDiesel in the body shop for 4.5 months and the battery held up great despite the truck being started and moved a lot without any charging or maintaining.
I'm quite sure that the charging system is killing our AGM batteries! AGM's like to be topped off between 14.4-14.8 temperature depending. I really avoid short trips in my truck or the battery only sits at 50% SOC which is hard on them.
I've been preaching the charger/maintainer/desulfator for a long time. People on this forum struggle to believe me when I say the factory batteries (main and auxiliary) will last 8+ years if they are maintained. Obviously, my 2023 Gladiator is only 2.5 years old, so I don't have a lot of proof. But considering the truck sits for 3 - 6 weeks at a time I think proves how effective the BatteryMINDer is. When I took the Gladiator in for the last 'free oil change', they tested the batteries. The Service Advisor acted surprised when he said, "We tested your batteries and they tested good". I explained to him that I keep them maintained. He said, "Whatever you're doing is working".
Two different things. AGM is a type of lead-acid batttery contstruction ("Advanced Glass Mat"), whereas "marine" is an intended use; most marine batteries are deep cycle or combined deep cycle / starting use.
I'll throw in another vote for Deka because they aren't very well known. A trusted mechanic turned me on to them about 25 years ago for my diesel pickups. They've all lasted 6+ years and that's with low use and no maintenance charging because I'm lazy. I've yet to replace a factory Gladiator battery but will go with Deka when I do.
They got bought out just a couple years ago and quality went in the crapper. And friend of mine went through 3 batteries and said screw it and went with a NAPA battery and all was well.
Are you sure about that? Everything I see shows that EnerSys has owned Odyssey since 2002 (24 years).
