After the long hard winter, one of my tired batteries has decided to call it a day despite regular charges to keep it topped up. Therefore, I’m wondering what type of battery would suit the 80hp Merc. ie leisure battery or a standard car battery ? reason for asking, I got a leisure battery on my Shetland ( 40hp Tohatsu) and it’s lasted 8 years and still going , ( or am I just lucky) and yet got a car battery on the others ( Moonfleet inboard and Winner outboard) and replaced them twice to the one on the Shetland... I’m at a crossroads and undecided

I have an Odyssey 680 (12 years old, is a racing / bike battery) and an Alphaline XV24 (leisure & 4 years old) for all my outboards. The Odyssey was expensive, but can be carried in one hand and I think be mounted 15deg off horizontal...I watch the charge levels and always smart charge them. There is a Merc group that say an unregulated charge is not good for the Odyssey / gel batteries.

I had a marine / leisure battery on my Merc 80 and it gave sterling service, even one Chertsey meeting when I spent nearly all day winding the thing over but not getting it to run only wish I could remember the make, it was nothing special, in fact I picked it up at a boat jumble supposedly light use only. It must have done 6 seasons or more before I needed to replace it at Poole in 2018. Thanks to Se7en I got a good deal on a 75Ah platinum marine battery at Trickett marine Ltd Poole, but it looks like they've closed down.

Will have to keep an eye out for a reasonably priced marine leisure battery then, pity about Trickitt Marine, hopefully se7en will see this and know of another source he can recommend.

I've used tayna batteries for my vehicles, fast delivery and good after sales service, they're a bit limited in offerings of 75Ah marine batteries though.

https://www.tayna.co.uk/marine-batteries/types/75ah/

We always use Optima red top batteries. Sealed and more robust, which is always good on a boat where it might get rough treatment.

Comes with a cost, though.


Kind regards

Richard

I was told by a Mercury Dealer (now retired) who was very familiar with the old style (up to 1984ish) Mercs & their lack of regulation, to always use a leisure battery not a start battery - it lasted the whole time I was running the Stapely but will need to be replaced when I get her back as it has stood for about 3 years!

Very interesting information Alacrity and thanks for sharing, my Merc. 80 is 1977( ish) so definitely falls in that bracket of engines you were referring to. Will contact Tayna in Abergele and see what they have in the range with Optima leisure batteries .

Optima battery purchased from Tayna batteries in Abergele and now on boat, rang them up, told them what purpose the battery was for, it arrived on the doorstep within 48hrs. Sterling service, although it wasn’t cheap, but from past experience, buy cheap buy twice.