I'm going to take the plunge and go lithium. It will be a single 100ah battery to replace the stock 75ah lead-acid. I've been looking at batteries and the Weize battery looks good. It's been reviewed by Will Prowse and he speaks highly of its build quality and reviews on Amazon look good. It's $399 on Amazon now and it has the cold temp cutoff that I need because of where we camp.
One thing bothers me and that's the customer service and warranty. The battery has a 10 year warranty but I can't find any information on what the warranty covers and I cannot find any website or phone number for a contact. Search Weize website or Weize customer service and you just find dead ends. The warranty does no good if you can't contact anyone.
Has anyone had experience with Weize? They've been making batteries for a while and their parent company make TPMS stuff for cars, so it's a bit of a mystery as to why I can't find any information on them.
An alternative could be the CHINS battery, currently for $319. It has good reviews and their customer service seems good based on the reviews I read. I can install a Victron Battery Sense for $40 to pair up with the Victron mppt charger to get the cold temp cutoff. That battery has a 3 yr warranty. Or Renogy has their 100ah Bluetooth battery on sale for $550 with a 5 year pro-rated warranty and the low temp cutoff.
Thanks for any feedback!
2021 320S BD
2006 F-150
Coeur d'Alene, Idaho
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My OE batteries are not lasting as they once did and I need the humidification feature on my CPAP so I don’t destroy my sinuses.
Jeff & Amy
One review I saw was from a man who had three batteries go bad in 10 months. He said Weize wanted him to bring the batteries to them in California, but he lived in Alabama. On their site they ask people with warranty claims to send them photos or videos of the issue. In my experience with other vendors that was enough to get the claim approved, and they'd send me a new item without me having to return the defective one. But will Weize do that? I have no idea. As far as the man with the bad batteries, did he cause that to happen or was it defective batteries? It's impossible to know for sure.
I built my own battery heat system for them (12v tank heater pad from Facon attached to an aluminum panel cut to size, piece of foamboard insulation underneath, wrapped sides of each battery in several layers of radiant barrier), and I use a Victron Smart Battery Sense device mounted in between the batteries to monitor temperatures. I have the heat pad directly wired into bus bars I installed, and mounted a generic toggle switch to turn the heat pad on/off (though it has its own thermocoupler to auto-regulate when on). The batteries are able to maintain a nice steady ~50-54 fahrenheit when the ambient air is in the low 30's.
2022 T@b 320 S / 2021 Subaru Outback