Are these original batteries?

[rooster63]

Further to my post about whether the batteries on my 10 year old Timberland Destiny would last 5 days off grid I’m now wondering if they are the original batteries after all. Has anybody got any idea what batteries Timberland fitted as standard? The current batteries I have are Yuasa  GTIVE L36-AGM batteries rated at 95ah. I can’t see a date on them as I can only see the front of the battery. It looks to me that if I want to access the batteries I have to remove the front seats so not easy to check.

[John52]

Sorry but I'm pretty sure the only way you can tell is to take the batteries out and find the date.

usually 4 figures - eg 0917 would be Sept 2017.

Vehicle manufacturers seldom stick to one brand of batteries or tyres etc, and tend to fit the batteries of whichever battery manufacturer offers them the best deal at that time.

[Derek Uzzell]

rooster63

1: There's no point looking for a date-of-manufacture on your Yuasa batteries. When I was looking for replacement batteries for our cars recently I wanted to be reasonably confident that what I would be obtaining had not been languishing on the vender's shelves for years. I contacted Yuasa(UK) and asked if Yuasa batteries had a date-code on them and was told "Yes, it was on the labelling, but it could not be read as a date and the labelling's coding format varied according to which factory the battery came from". I said "OK, if I buy a Yuasa battery and then tell you what data are on it, can you 'decrypt' that data and tell me what the date-of-manufacture is?" Yuasa(UK) said "No, we can't do that." (I subsequently bought two Yuasa batteries and I can't identify their date-of-manufacture from the data on the labelling.)

2: It's unlikely that your Timberland Yuasa batteries are the originals as reviews state that the Destiny came with 2 x 110Ah leisure batteries as standard. I can't see why Timberland  would choose (expensive) 95Ah Yuasa AGM batteries instead and, in any case, I'm doubtful that the L36-AGM battery would have been marketed in 2013.

[Alanb]

Subsequent to buying our 2011 Saab 9-3 in November 2015, I noted that the battery, a Yuasa 3096, did not seem to be original fitment.

An intrernet search provided some suggestions for extracting the manufacturing date from the engraved code, KT3J23.

My interpetation was 2013 October 23, with the "3" being the year in the decade, and "J" indicating the tenth month. This fitted with the original battery being replaced, at some date prior to my purchase. Perhaps because the original had been left in a discharged state?

Alan

 

[Derek Uzzell]

This is the relevant part of the email conversation I had with Yuasa(UK) about date-codes. I said

I intend to order two Yuasa car batteries from  a local battery specialist, as this will allow me to collect them myself and confirm that they are well charged and when they were manufactured. 

I have bought several Varta batteries in the past and their date of manufacture has been simple to establish from markings etched on the battery’s casing. Conversely, all online discussions suggest that it is impossible to visually identify the date of manufacture of a Yuasa YBX battery in the same easy way.

I understand that a Yuasa automotive battery’s date of manufacture can be known by contacting Yuasa and providing the battery’s barcode (?) However, this approach is of little benefit to me as – if it transpired that the battery being offered to me over the counter by the local supplier had been manufactured much more than 6 months previously – I would not accept it.

Consequently, would you please tell me whether I could identify the date of manufacture of a Yuasa YBX5012 just by examining markings on the battery? 

The response from Yuasa(UK) was

Our batteries are etched with a date code on the top. We have different factories with different code formats, so we are not able to tell you how to decode them.

The batteries I purchased come from Yuasa's YBX5 range of starter batteries. They have a two sets of data 'dot etched' into the battery's upper surface between the terminal posts (as indicated here)

It's less easy to read the data now that the batteries are installed, but - when I examined the batteries before fitting them - I could find no straightforward correlation between either of the letter/number combinations and what might be a date-of-manufacture.

This February 2019 Yarisworld forum thread discussed dating a 'brand new' Yuasa YBX3063  battery

https://yarisworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=61614

The battery's two sets of data (54D01C2Z and 2101D33) were sent to Yuasa(UK) who stated that the battery had been manufactured in January 2017. This would have meant that the 'brand new' YBX3063 battery being offered for sale was already two years old, which casts doubt on the accuracy of the Yuasa(UK) advice and might explain why they are no longer able (or are no longer prepared) to provide date-of-manufacture advice for automotive batteries.

In 2016 I asked Banner about dating my Rapido motorhome's "Energy Bull" leisure battery. I provided two 5-character groups - FBBEF (next to the battery’s negative terminal) and XX51A (next to the battery’s positive terminal) - and was given the following guidance::

The date-code is contained within the “FBBEF” group. The week/year date of manufacture is identified by the initial 4 letters of the group, with A=0, B=1, C=2 etc. The 1st pair of letters identifies the week and the 2nd pair of letters identifies the year. The 5th letter in the group provides Banner with information identifying the person in charge of the production line.

The "XX51A” 5-character group identified the production line and battery make-up.

FBBE equated to 5114 and indicated that my Rapido's Banner battery was made in the 51st week of 2014. As I took delivery of the Rapido in April 2015, the battery was made just a few months previously.

There's no doubt that reputable automotive battery manufacturers will always put on their products 'dating' information. Some (like Varta) provide a simple conventional date, others (like Banner) use a week/year code that's easily deciphered once one knows the format,  but Yuasa's dating  format seems to be particularly opaque.