Post
by custardbomb » Mon Jun 30, 2014 12:12 am
Hello John,
I was a distributor once for Elecsol so I can pass the following comments from my experiences from either personal experience, read about customer experiences or speaking to customers.
Elecsol as you rightly point out are no longer trading due to three contributing factors; misleading advertising, the batteries were wildly regarded as not being very good and the customer service offered by Steve was appalling who regularly was rude to, shouted at and hung up on customers.
As an example a model may have been labelled as 'Elecsol 100' which consumers assumed meant 100Ah although no specific mention was made that 100 was capacity (it was just a number). This case size battery 175 x 190 x 353 at the time was physically only capable of being 90Ah C20 i.e. 90 amps could be discharged over 20 hours; there is a maximum capacity any one case size can be and its physically impossible for anyone else to make a higher one. The higher values used by Elecsol as was more common at the time were almost certainly C100 i.e. 100 amps discharged over 100 hours therefore consumers assumed they were getting more than they actually were. Comparisons between battery capacities should only be made at the C20 rating i.e. how many amps can be discharged over 20 hours. Also the blind tests I have read and when I have spoken to reps where they were aware of the batteries that were tested informed me that Elecsol batteries did not perform close to what was advertised and discrepancies of tens of Ah's were reported. They also offered a five year warranty, however this was only valid direct with Elecsol and only if the warranty card was completed and returned with an original invoice to Elecsol. The battery would need to be returned at the customers expense to Elecsol where testing would be undertaken to determine if the battery failed of a manufacturing defect.
As with all batteries the warranty period only covers manufacturing defects that cause failure within the period, bad cells would be an example; the worlds largest manufacturer Varta only offer two years on their batteries for a reason which says something; Elecsol offering five years led consumers to assume incorrectly that the battery would last for five years and be replaced free of charge if it failed within that period. Battery failure is far more likely to be a consequence of user care and maintenance issues; i.e. failures caused by overcharging, undercharging, lack of use, not charging, running down too low whilst in use which causes sulphation of the plates, using the battery outside of its intended application i.e. using a high power inverter on a 'leisure battery' not an AGM or Gel Semi or Full traction etc. Any failures caused by such issues are not a fault of the battery.
My personal recommendation would be Numax which is the only brand of battery I now sell and I receive very very very few problems; this is the battery offered by Manbat. Other reputable manufacturers would be Rolls, Varta, Banner, Deta, Sonnenschein, Optima, Exide.
Tayna as a retailer are highly recommended across the web!
Chris