Dorman Battery Experiences

I agree about the remans, and am now wondering if I shouldn't have just ordered 20 sticks from Alibaba. That said, so far, it's been good and not as good as it should be. Cardone stepped up and are sending a freshly charged unit directly to me -- that's the good. The not so good was RockAuto wanting me to ship the bad battery without the protective crate and refusing to send one until I dropped the bad one off at FedEx. Cardone +5 for the exceptional service and keeping me informed; RockAuto now has one less customer unless the replacement battery fails.

 

Hi Chap,
You are correct on several points here. Dorman does in fact have a database of every module and it's characteristics coming in to our process and how it leaves. This info has allowed us to refine the process several times since Dorman took over the operation. With every refinement, our product has gotten better and as a result are selling to many taxi fleets and Toyota dealers all over the US and Canada.
Your suggestion of a print out is being worked on and will at some point, become a part of the process once it has been decided what information will be included. There are certainly limits to what we can share without giving away critical aspects of our process.

With Dorman being a public company, I know they do not randomly assign warranty terms to products unless they have total confidence in the quality being top notch and the 3 year warranty speaks volumes. Dorman has experienced some growing pains that you would find in any large scale operation. I personally have had to handle warranty returns where the battery was damaged in transit, damaged in the installation, and most commonly returned with no failure because the installer did not diagnose the car before ordering the battery.
All warranty returns are taken very seriously and changes are made to eliminate problems as they become apparent.

Hope this helps answer most of your concerns. I apologize for not responding earlier. My account is set to alert me, but this time it did not.
Thanks,
David Taylor

 

David, that's very interesting. Any more info on which dealerships have access to Dorman batteries, specifically in my area?

 

Most all of our Canadian shipments are processed through NAPA

 

Dave,
Are warranty returns handled through the local NAPA store ?

 

Yes

 

Well, the saga is over, and A-1 Cardone came through. Amazingly, all the to the end RockAuto was a PITA to deal with, insisting that I was wrong to want a replacement upfront (I even offered to have a temporary charge on my card). The reason I was wrong: RockAuto policy states that the customer must first drop the bad part off at FedEx before they are allowed to process a replacement. Talk about a company that gets in its own way. My guess is the owner must have worked for the government since that's the only place I've seen that level of customer-ignorant bureaucracy.

Again, my hat's off to A-1 Cardone and Jason Winchester (and his team) for handling this in a very customer-centric fashion.

 

(Answer to whether warranty returns are handled though the local parts store.)

I looked up NAPA, and see three different offers ranging from ~ $1400 to over $1900. The most expensive part seems to also have a fan attached, but I doubt that explains a $500 difference.

Dave ?

I'm also wondering if there are any fees or charges charged by Dorman or NAPA in the event of a warranty return. Dave, I realize that you do not work for NAPA, I ask because I figure you would know.

Thanks

 

Hi David,

I'm really glad that will be considered. I'm sure there'd be no need to include the characteristics coming in, or any secrets of the process ... the numbers that would be of interest to the purchaser are are just the ones on how it leaves. A list of module serial numbers used in the assembly, with their measured discharge Ah, internal resistance, and voltage/date at completion of final balance/charging before leaving the facility would probably be a strong differentiator for your product ... precisely because I'm guessing Toyota is not providing such a printout. (Maybe I'm wrong? I've never bought one from Toyota.)

Of course, Toyota could respond by including their own printouts if they wanted to ... but that would just make it possible for PriusChatters arguing about new vs. reman to be talking about real data!

I remember that years ago, the last time I bought a "high end" phonograph cartridge, it came with its own little individual printout of output voltage, impedance, channel separation, and even a little dot-matrix-printed graph of frequency response. That kind of thing is a nice touch. (And that was on a product priced a lot less than $1500, even inflated to 2015 dollars!)

Sure - I don't personally have concerns at the moment (no need for battery yet, knock wood), but I like what you're doing and I wanted to make a suggestion that I thought could make it a stronger offering.

I just noticed another recent post where your product was taking some heat ... the poster's comments make very clear what his opinion is, and it seems to me the best way you could turn such conversations to your benefit would be if you could make them data driven.

I was just looking over the battery program PDFs on the Dorman site and I noticed they aren't providing any technical specs at all. I would have hoped for, at least, "spec for this battery is 6.5 Ah and any battery we sell will have tested >= 5.8 Ah at the weakest module, < 20 mΩ" or whatever, you choose the numbers you can live with. The individual printout is still a good thing and will end up pleasing most customers by being better than the published minimum ... but I'd think also having a minimum spec that you publish in the presales literature for each product would be well received. Most product manufacturers seem to do that....

Cheers,
-Chap

 

Just to clarify, none of our batteries except the Ford Escape come with a cooling fan.
As to the pricing and warranty policy, Dorman has no control over either with our customers. We have seen prices from $1400 to $3500 on the same battery and warranty from 12 months to 36 months at different retailers.
I can assure you, we only produce one version of each battery, so it will benefit everyone to shop around.

 

Thanks for replying.
Since the prices I quoted were only from NAPA I am confused. Maybe different warranty periods ?

 

Could be, but even in our area, prices are all over even between multiple stores of the same company.

 

My economist brain tells me that this is an indicator of an immature market where sellers and buyers don't know what the equilibrium price is. That would also indicate that some sellers are simply pricing at the max and letting the market tell them what it might be over the long-term. Which would lead me to believe that they are generally WAY overpriced and buyers should work sellers hard to drive the price down.

 

I looked again at the NAPA pricing:
The ~ $19k offer has a fan, so that presumably is for the Ford
The ~ $1400 battery does not have the orange Dorman branded cover, and may not have the electronics
The ~ $1600 battery has a Dorman Orange cover, and I think I can see electronics

 

We sell all batteries with electronics

 

David, I just wanted to thank you for staying so active in the Prius community and offering to help me. I apologize for just now acknowledging that but I have been covered up. The strangest thing happened with my battery after the issue with Rockauto... it stopped screwing up! I was trying to figure out when I would ever be able to find the time to remove it and I ended up having no choice but to drive it to work in limp mode but surprisingly after that day of non stop codes coming back immediately, I haven't had a single code since. The car runs great and I'm getting 50-55 mpg barely trying. I don't know why the battery was so angry that day because it has been happy ever since.

Anyway, I really appreciate your offer to get the ball rolling for me since Rockauto was being a huge PITA. Do you have any idea why it would be fine for a few months, just freak out for one day, and then be fine for months again after? It was really cold that day (17f) but it has been cold again since and didn't have that effect. Should I replace it when I get a chance anyway due to that being a warning sign or could it be that something just needed to settle or even out?

 

$1400-$1600 for a rebuilt battery vs NEW, is such a small difference, esp when factoring longevity of your original HV Battery.
$2071, San Bernardino Toyota, San Bernardino, CA.
$2175, Camelback Toyota, Phoenix, CA.

I just can't see a rebuilt HV Battery going the distance. Hoping I hit the HV Battery lotto before the current CARB warranty expires; car is currently at 9years/135,000 miles.

 

I am happy to help anytime. Not sure what to say about your battery except that if it did in fact have a cell block failure, that it would not have gone away. More likely to be a connection issue at the battery ECU, which could have seated itself just from normal bumps and jolts during driving. Rest assured Dorman will be there for you if issues come back later.

 

In general, Dorman stuff is unfortunately junk these days. Most parts are made in China. Dorman used to be a big and respected name in auto parts but they seem to have followed all the other parts suppliers to low quality, i.e., Chinese products. Glad I read this thread before buying a battery pack! Thanks for the warnings.

 

it might be a challenge to find anything made outside of china. it's probably more about specs and quality control.