The Best Value For Money Car Batteries, According To Consumer Reports

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Few things make you feel more despondent than when you get behind the wheel for a drive and your car won’t start. Congratulations — your battery’s dead! Not only is this an inconvenience on your whole day, but you end up having to spend a lot more money than you initially anticipated. Unfortunately, you’re backed into a corner and have to buy that new battery if you want your car to continue working.

While it’s great to recommend the best batteries for certain vehicles, these top-tier batteries aren’t always the most budget-friendly options. The cost of owning and maintaining a vehicle can be so high that finding any way to save a little bit of cash without sacrificing too much quality is of the utmost importance. That’s where a resource like Consumer Reports comes in handy. For whatever battery size your vehicle may use, CR has determined what it believes which car batteries are going to give you the best bang for your buck, ranging from the smallest sizes (24/24F) sizes to the largest (94R).

These may not necessarily be the best overall battery based on Consumer Reports’ expert testing or the satisfaction scores from actual owners, but they do inhabit that perfect middle ground. Some of these batteries are from the big name brands, while others are from smaller companies you may or may not have heard of. Here, we take a look at five car batteries — each a different size — that Consumer Reports believes will get you the best quality for the value.

We’re going to start with the 24/24F battery size. This is the smallest vehicle battery that Consumer Reports has tested and reviewed. You’ll typically find these batteries in vehicles produced by a number of the big name Japanese automakers, such as Honda, Toyota, Nissan, and their luxury brand counterparts. For this size, CR has determined that the best battery for a good price is the Weize Platinum 24F AGM.

This is most certainly a case of not sacrificing quality for price. Among all of the 24/24F batteries tested by the publication, the Weize Platinum has the second highest overall score of them all, barely beaten out by the Duralast Platinum 24F AGM. The reason for that battery’s number one placement comes down to it performing a little bit better than the Weize in cold weather, but the Weize still has very good numbers there as well. The Weize battery even has a “Green Choice” designation from CR, indicating a battery with a lower environmental impact than average.

Even though the two  are close together in ratings, there’s a significant difference in their prices. The Duralast battery sells for $259.99, but you can get the Weize Platinum 24F AGM for just $159.99. Neither of these prices include the typical $22 refundable core charge you’ll have to pay when purchasing a new battery. That means getting this Weize battery will save you $100 for a product that performs just about as well as the top-ranked battery in its class. That’s a tough deal to pass up.

The love for Weize batteries from Consumer Reports doesn’t stop with the 24/24F sizes. For a variety of different sizes, the publication has found the brand to be the best value for the money that you can get on the market. One of those is the size 35 batteries; here, the Weize Platinum 35 AGM takes the cake. This is basically the same battery as the 24F model but made for vehicles that need that larger size. These are still predominantly found in cars from Japanese companies like Honda, Mazda, Subaru, and Toyota.

Unlike the 24F Weize battery though, the Weize Platinum 35 AGM doesn’t rank quite as highly among batteries of its size by Consumer Reports. Among all of the 35 batteries tested, it’s the lowest rated of the bunch, though it still manages to get a “CR Recommended” stamp of approval. The publication recommends a total of 13 batteries in this size range, more than triple the number of recommended 24/24F batteries. That being said, a battery ending up on the list is still a strong show of quality, and the ratings for things like cold weather performance and reserve capacity stack up very well against the competition.

The top-rated size 35 battery by Consumer Reports is the X2Power Premium AGM SLI35AGMDP, which sells for a whopping $369.99. You can get the Weize Platinum 35 AGM for just $159.99, the same price as the 24F model. It may not be the very cream of the crop, but it’s fairly close to that level. With that slight dip, you’re saving over $200, more than the cost of the Weize itself.

We move away from Weize for size 47 batteries. Also known as H5s, these are models that you’ll find in certain American vehicle brands like Buick and Chevrolet, as well as international ones like Volkswagen and Fiat. Even though there’s a Weize Platinum battery for this size, Consumer Reports hasn’t tested it. Instead, the best value for your money as determined by the publication is the EverStart Platinum AGM H5/47 battery.

EverStart is Walmart’s exclusive line of car batteries, and by and large, real world owners are quite happy with their EverStart batteries. CR agrees with these findings, as this EverStart H5 ties for second place in its rankings among all of the other batteries of its size the publication has tested. In that four-way tie with batteries made by DieHard, Duracell, and Interstate, the EverStart is the only one to be given the “Green Choice” designation for low environmental impact. This is something it shares with the top-rated Duralast Platinum AGM 47/H5 battery.

The difference in price between the EverStart and Duralast batteries isn’t quite as substantial as the previously mentioned ones, but it’s still savings that anybody would be happy with. The EverStart Platinum AGM H5/47 battery sells for $189, whereas that top-rated Duracell model goes for $259.99. That’s a roughly $70 discount for going from CR’s number one H5 battery to the number two; considering how the publication rates their respective performances, they truly are neck and neck competitors.

Going to the size 48 — or H6 — batteries, we return to a very familiar face on this list. Weize is once again the brand that Consumer Reports finds to be the best quality for its value. The Weize Platinum QTF-70 is in the same line as the aforementioned 24F and 35 models, but this one is made for vehicles that need H6 batteries. You’ll see these across a wide spectrum of cars, SUVs, and trucks from brands all over the world, including Cadillac, BMW, Mercedes-Benz, Jeep, GMC, Volvo, and more.

Among all of the H6 batteries tested by CR, the Weize model is ranked fourth behind those produced by Champion, Odyssey, and Optima, with the Odyssey Performance 48-720 battery being at the top of the heap. The Odyssey does outperform the Weize when it comes to cold weather performance, but Weize has the edge with reserve capacity. The Platinum QTF-70 even has a distinction of being a battery with one of the longest lifespans you’ll find on the market. Either way, the two models aren’t too far off from one another, and there’s no area where CR finds the Weize battery to be lacking in any major way.

Like the two previous Weize models, the Platinum QTF-70 sells for $159.99. While it’s impressive that Weize has a standardized price for all of these batteries, it’s even more so when compared to the price of that top-rated Odyssey model, which retails for a massive $362.99. A $203 difference between two batteries that Consumer Reports believes to be fairly comparable is enough to make anybody think twice about buying.

For the final battery on this list, we go to a size that Consumer Reports has once again not tested a Weize-branded product. Size 65 batteries are made for larger SUVs and trucks, and you’ll find them primarily under the hoods of Ford and Mercury vehicles. To get the best bang for your buck in this category according to CR, you need to look to the DieHard Gold #65-2. DieHard is admittedly one of the best car battery brands on the market, and this particular model ranks fifth overall in the publication’s ranking of size 65 batteries, finishing just one spot below the Platinum 65 from the same company.

Even though the Platinum performs slightly better in cold weather and has a lower environmental impact, Consumer Reports still finds the DieHard Gold to be the best value. On the market, the Gold goes for $214.99. That’s just $20 less than the Platinum version, but even that small amount is enough for CR to recommended the Gold over it. That shows that it doesn’t find the difference in the two batteries to be that dramatically different.

You get even further savings when you compare the DieHard Gold to the top-rated battery of this size, the Super Start Platinum AGM 65PLT, which sells for $259.99. While $45 may not seem like the deal of the century — especially when compared to the hundreds of dollars other batteries on this list saves you — that’s still a good chunk of change you can put to something else you need. The DieHard Gold #65-2 gets you solid performance for a solid price.