I've been using Delco "Freedom" batteries for...well...let's just say from before a lot of you were born. I've had some concern that with Delco going bankrupt that these batteries might cease to be available. I just looked at the ACDelco website and was happy to find that they are still there...but unhappy to find that the batteries don't look like they used to
They now have vent caps and no hydrometer eye...I started this thread to ask if you guys knew what was going on, but in the course of writing I found something on the web indicating that Delco no longer makes their batteries. The shorter warranty ones are made in China, and the higher-end ones are now made by Johnson Controls that also makes Interstate batteries and others (I hope all this info is correct, I found it in a post by someone who works in shop that sells Delco parts). Purportedly the batteries still use the same technology they did under Delco but that's a bit hard to swallow when they now look like a "regular" battery. Meh.
Another sad chapter for a great company with a history of innovation. AC Delco was responsible for so many automotove advancements, in some cases not the first to use a technology, but the first to bring it to OEM/mass market or first to make it themselves (for instance, I think Chrysler was the first to put a computer in a mass-market car with the "Lean Burn" system of the mid-70's, but that was a Motorola chip, when GM did it, it was with their own Delco computers). Just some things that come to mind in the 70's were the first sealed/maintenance-free battery, and the HEI electronic ignition. In the 80's it was the distributorless ignition and the successful skirt of the Bosch fuel injector patents with the Multec injector, which brought port fuel injection to the mass market. Anyway, now they are just another sellout.
Not sure what I'm going to do next time I need a battery.
EDIT: Before any of you guys scold me, of course the Multec injector wasn't an AC-Delco product, it came out of the Rochester Carburetor Div. As I think I've opined about before on the forum, GM had incredible engineering/mfg. reach with their captive divisions making almost everything on the car. (Harrison Radiator for heater cores, radiators and A/C condensers, Rochester for fuel systems, Guide lighting, Packard wire, Delco Electronics, etc. etc.)
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