Power AGM Battery Review; is this budget battery any good?

ByAaron Schubert Posted: Updated:

There’s a lot of different 12V batteries out there, and when you see something that seems cheap its only human nature to be cautious of it.

I was in exactly the same situation when it came to looking for new batteries for our camper trailer, and when I stumbled across the Power AGM brand I wondered if they were actually any good.

Power AGM batteries
Two Power AGM Batteries on our old Camper Trailer

I did a fair bit of reading, found out that they were sold by a number of different companies and couldn’t find any bad reviews about the batteries. On top of this, they actually weighed the correct amount to be a 135 amp hour battery, unlike some on the market. 

Unfortunately, you get a lot of people advertising items in an exagerated way, and the eBay solar panel saga is the perfect example of this. People are buying ‘300 watt’ solar panels that are actually only 200W, but falsely advertised.

I shopped around for some time, and eventually found a local company in Perth who was willing to match the best price I’d found online (at autoelec on eBay), and deliver them to my house the next day free of charge.

I took the local service as I needed them ASAP for an upcoming trip, and we used them for a number of years after.

Now, you deserve to know that this is an unbiased review, and that I paid the normal retail price for both of my red, Power AGM batteries.

I installed them in parallel on the side of our soft floor camper trailer (giving us 270ah of capacity) and we used it extensively to run a 55L freezer, various lights and other small accessories.

I used two 200W Low Energy Development Solar Panels to charge the batteries via a Victron MPPT charger, and it performed exceptionally well.

Victron MPPT case
The batteries and Victron MPPT worked flawlessly

Power AGM Battery Review

I had zero issues with my batteries, and they were still working when I sold the camper trailer. They held charge well, depleted correctly based on voltage and actual capacity, and did their job without any signs of impairment.

If you look online for other reviews you’ll see that they seem to perform well overall, with very few people complaining about them.

If I was in the market for another 12V battery I’d certainly look at them again. I’ve read a huge number of positive reviews online regarding the Power AGM Batteries too, and can’t recall any negative reviews.

However, we’ll probably end up going down the lithium battery path as the batteries keep getting cheaper and the benefits are incredible, particularly surrounding weight. EDIT – We’ve just done that – Lithium Battery and Solar Upgrade.

That said, if you want a no fuss 12V battery the Power AGM units perform well with a no fuss, no frills arrangement.

Soft Floor Camper batteries
We worked these batteries pretty hard with no negative affects

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Aaron Schubert is a 4WD and camping nut, who's a qualified Maintenance Planner and Mechanical Fitter, and has extensive Industrial Maintenance experience.

He's done hundreds of 4WD tracks all over Australia and more than a thousand nights camping with several different 4WD builds and camping setups.

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4 Comments

  1. Hey Ern,

    Interesting, and a worthy comparison either way. Good point about having things away from the wheels; it’d be interesting to look at the physics behind distances away from the wheels, and the affects of vibration and general 4WDing.

    You aren’t wrong about the cost to change to lithium, and there’s more than a handful of them that are failing too. If AGM does what you need it to, sticking with a well known brand should see you out for a few more years!

    Cheers for your comments, and all the best
    Aaron

  2. Yeah Aaron, used some insertion rubber.

    AC Delcos on the same mount lasted a lot longer.

    They’re right behind the wheels so they cop everything. I’ve bought inverters and stuff from ABR Sidewinder and he advises mounting electronics away from the wheels if you can.

    I’m just installing replacements and have gone for AGMs which are supposed to be more resistant to vibration. Lithium would be good but the cost and need to replace 2 DC chargers and one 240 charger are a barrier.

  3. Hey Ern,

    Vibrations are pretty nasty long term on anything, and you could be correct with your assumptions. Did you have them mounted on anything? I always try and mount them on thick linatex to take some of the vibration out; not sure if it helps hugely or not, but I feel better doing it.

    Cheers for your review
    Aaron

  4. I’ve had 3 of them: a 4wd starter and two deep cycle in the CT. This pair lasted 3 years when I’ve got 5 out of others in that application, while the starter lasted 2.5 when the original was still going at 5.
    The CT units were supplied by a Redarc DC charger from the car and a Projecta solar DC charger when in storage. They dropped below half charge only once and were always fully recharged.
    If I had to speculate on this poor performance I’d wonder whether they didn’t cope well with vibration.