Slightly OT: New PC925 battery not getting to full charge Options

[Literati914]

Couple days ago I picked up two new Odyssey PC925 batteries from a marketplace seller who was supposedly selling them for his dad. The story was that his dad bought them for a couple of electric bike builds and they were too heavy. Dad chose something else after only opening and trying one of them (one was unboxed and one had never been opened when I purchased). So they sat for 4-5 months, his dad said 'get whatever you can for them'. The seller had them at $200 a piece, before dropping them to $100 each - which is what I bought them for.

The one that was already opened was only showing like 7V so I put it on a little charger I already had (not necessarily the recommended type, that I'll need to purchase I guess). I kept a watch on it so it did not over charge.. but I finally took it off the charger when it reached 12.25V or so (took a long time tbh). I installed it in a 2.5L Volvo wagon (will be going in 914s eventually), it showed 14.3-4v, so I did a 20+ mile loop on the freeway to finish topping it off. I did not check it as soon as I returned but about and hour after the drive, it's still only showing like 12.15V. Is this just a bad battery or need more (proper) charging?

[fiacra]

I've had a different experience than Artfrombama with my Odyssey 925. My previous 914 sometimes sat for months between drives and I did not keep it on a maintainer since I had to park it in the driveway. I let it go dead multiple times, at least four times, and would pull it and put it on a charger overnight and it always came back to life. When I sold the car the battery was still going strong at 9 years old.

I would say that the jury is still out on your batteries. You need to put a full charge on them and see if they can hold it. I don't think it is fair to task your alternator to fully charge a dead or depleted battery, especially a big battery like this one. Get the right AGM battery charger, give them a good charge, and then test them. Hopefully they are fine. They are the only battery I use now, and nowadays I do keep them on a maintainer.