<e36> battery

[barrettn@xxxxxxxx (Barrett Nicholas)]

Given the hot weather, I thought sharing my experience with batteries
might be of interest to the group, seeing how heat can really shorten
a battery's life. The e36 stock battery is a group 92 battery, made
for BMW by Douglas. It's supposedly a "vibration-resistant" battery,
but the local Douglas rep claims that this was done due to the battery
having thin plates which break easily, so it has a special rubber
lined case to help prevent that from happening. Douglas doesn't sell
this battery to the general public - I tried to have the local Douglas
dealer order one for me, no luck. My dealer's price on the group 92
was $126 - I don't know what the suggested retail is, it might be
lower. I couldn't find anyone else who makes a group 92 battery, there
was someone who'd posted to the big digest back in December claiming
they'd been able to fit an Exide group 49 battery (750 cca) and make
the hold down work. Either they had the end slid up over the lip that
hooks over the "foot" on the non-clamped end of the battery, or
there's something very different between my e36 sedan and whatever e36
they were installing into, because there was no way to make it fit and
use the hold down. I ended up installing a Douglas group 48 (625 cca),
$53 - it's shorter than the group 92, but there's a bolt hole forward
of the rearmost hole that works perfectly for holding it down.
Supposedly it has thicker plates than the group 92, so the fact it's
not vibration resistant battery shouldn't matter. The vent on the
Douglas 48 is in the right place

Performance content: The group 48 battery weighs 53 pounds - the
distributor where I bought my battery sells a dry cell battery made by
Crishell Automotive products (www.blackpanther.com - black panther is
the name of the line of batteries) - and their 800 ca battery weighs
23 lbs! They also make motorcycle, atv & watercraft batteries - 700 ca
/ 13 lbs, 500 ca / 11.8 lbs - I don't know the rules for different
classes of racing, but that's a considerable weight difference if it's
allowed. I priced the 800 ca battery - $140.


P.S. Just picked up a set of 4 Bridgstone Potenza S-02 Pole Positions
in 235/40/17 with 300 miles on them for $500 !!! Now I can finally
install my 17" rims & my Brembo 4 pot calipers & big rotors!!! Wooo
Hoooo!

Barrett N.
barrett.nicholas@domain.elided
Houston, Texas
BMWCCA# 130,000
'95 325i - CeeKay, the SuperCar
shark-infested (JimC chip)

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