After several years of service, your Mercedes Benz is starting to exhibit some attitude. You put the key in, try to crank the engine over and you sometimes just get a click. You try again, it works. But why? If you’re lucky enough, your engine just takes a longer time to crank over.
After some careful diagnosis, you have come to the conclusion that it is your battery. After several years of service, it is on its death bed, only coughing up once in a while to remind you it’s still alive. It’s time to replace it, but you do not have an idea what type of battery your Mercedes uses.
What are Mercedes-Benz battery specifications? Mercedes Benz models use a battery known as H8 or Group 49 battery. These batteries are built to deliver more than 700 cold cranking amps and at least 140 minutes of reserve power. This is perfect for a sporty vehicle with a big, exotic motor in it.
Even more specifically, Mercedes vehicles use AGM H8 batteries. AGM are also known as absorbent glass matt batteries. These are an improvement on traditional lead acid batteries and they provide more power at a moment’s notice, which is perfect for powering modern vehicles and their electronics.
These batteries are totally sealed and are thus maintenance free, probably the reason why you’ve never had to do any maintenance on them apart from removing any caked up corrosion on the battery terminals.
What Batteries Can You Use As a Replacement?
1. Exide AGM Batteries
Exide is known and respected worldwide for the quality of the batteries they manufacture. This is mainly due to the longevity and little amounts of TLC that are required by the battery. That being said though, Exide do know the quality of their products. As with any business who recognize this, they put a premium on their prices.
Exide batteries are not as cheap as some of the others, but the quality they provide is unmatched. These are H8 AGM batteries, so when making the switch, it’s just a matter of taking the old one out and placing in the new one. No modifications necessary to make it fit. This is true of the Exide Edge 94R Sealed Automotive Battery.
This battery is rated to provide 800 cold cranking amps and 140 minutes of reserve power. This gives it enough power to crank over your car’s exotic engine. This also gives it the ability to perform under an increased load, as well as in a wide range of temperature variances.
2. AC Delco Batteries
If the price of the Exide batteries made you pull out one of your best meme faces, you may have wanted to look at alternatives before you settle. And that is exactly what AC Delco had in mind when coming up with their range of batteries. AC Delco are known for providing excellent batteries at price points that are appreciated by car owners in every corner of the country.
Not only that, they also think their products through. The high standards with which they attach to their batteries makes them confident enough to provide car owners with 36 months’ worth of warranty. That’s more than most of these other manufacturers out here.
The battery uses a variety of innovative features that are meant to place it well above the competition. The use of alloys is meant to improve the cycle life as well as the performance. It is rated at 850 cold cranking amps and 140 minutes of reserve power, this battery will power your vehicle in entirety; engine, electronics and accessories.
3. Bosch Batteries
If you bought your car new, you know that Mercedes Benz vehicles do come with Bosch batteries as standard. So, going for a Bosch battery will be a like for like replacement. No need for extensive labor in modifying the battery bracket to have it fit.
That being said, it should be noted that Bosch made a deal with Exide to have them provide branded batteries. What you do get is quality and longevity in a brand that Mercedes approve of, and actually use in the vehicles. They are designed to resist corrosion and be maintenance free, and they also do come with a 36-month warranty period. (You can learn about Mercedes Battery Warranty by clicking here).
These batteries are designed to give 850 cold cranking amps and 140 minutes of reserve power, enough juice to power your vehicle. These batteries are not found with every retailer. They are majorly sold by Pepboys.com.
Definition of Terms Used
When describing a battery, there are several terms that can be used to explain the power that the battery can deliver to the engine, as well as how much power it can give over a period of time. These are important as not every battery an turn over every engine. Different engine sizes require different voltages and amperages. The larger the engine, the larger the battery that is to be used.
1. Cranking Amps. For a starter to be able to crank over an engine, it has to be fed with enough power. This power will then be converted into rotary motion, enough to force compression in the engine’s cylinders and then it can run on its own. For this, we have two specifications:
• Cranking Amps are the number of amperes that a battery can provide at a temperature of 32 degrees Fahrenheit, and not drop below 7.2 volts in delivery.
• Cold Cranking Amps is what’s more common. This is the number of amperes that can flow out of the battery when the temperatures are at 0 degrees Fahrenheit. The greater the number, the greater the power that can be provided to start the engine on a cold day. This measurement is more often used because of the temperature variance across the country, just to keep things standard.
2. Reserve capacity. Apart from just starting the engine, the battery has a secondary role of powering electronics for a short period while the engine is off. This is known as the reserve capacity and is the number of minutes that a battery will discharge until the voltage drops below 10.5. All this is measured at 80 degrees Fahrenheit.
