Actual Manufacture Date of this MTD Battery???

[jes_in_sac]

I gave up on the Lawn & Garden lead acid batteries many years ago, and have a pile of worthless ones laying in a pile on the farm, some of which only lasted about a year. They will show voltage, but quickly deteriorate to have no cranking amps left. I've tried regenerating them, adding mag. sulfite, and everything, but they are just made cheaply and don't like the bouncing, and the internal connections just become marginal. I switched to AGM sealed motorcycle/ATV batteries, keep it on a battery maintainer, and I get about 4 yrs out of them, bouncing around on the uneven terrain of the farm. I will never buy another Lawn & Garden lead acid battery again. The AGM Motorcycle/ATV batteries are small, easily ship from Amazon, no core trade-in required, and the price is about the same as a worthless L&G battery from Walmart or Home Depot. A battery maintainer is also cheap, and the best thing you can do to extend the battery life. When using the AGM batteries, they are smaller than L&G batteries, so I just use packing foam around the sides to make up the extra space and provide a little bump protection.

 

[evh]

So yesterday I used the tractor for about 2 hours. I would guess I started it at least 8 – 10 times. All of the starts went well with none of them stopping when the motor hit high compression. Below are the test results from my battery tester after the mower sat for about 18 hours. Note, it is a 300CCA battery.

The voltage is still not where it should be. You can tell the age is starting to get to the battery. I am guessing the battery is about 8.5 years old. I won’t use it again for at least a couple weeks. I will see what results I get after it sits that long.

 

[Freddie21]

I would make sure you have a jumper pack on the machine just in case.