RE: Battery Info 90 200TQW, Interstate

["Perry, Chris" <perryc@wdni.com>]

I just purchased a new 100 month battery from GI Joe's here in Washington
State.  It has the vent tubes on both sides.  I paid 59.99 USD for it.  It
is a group 41 with 760 CCA at 0 F and 850 CCA at 32 F. They told me that
their house brand (the name of which I can't remember right now) is
manufactured by Exide.   This was for a 1989 90q.

HTH,
chris perry

> -----Original Message-----
> From:	David Ritter [SMTP:dritter@mich.com]
> Sent:	Wednesday, July 28, 1999 2:58 PM
> To:	quattro@audifans.com
> Subject:	Battery Info 90 200TQW, Interstate
> 
> Hello,
> Just following up my own post from earlier.
> The Interstate people don't seem to do well with the special batteries 
> needed by the 200. I spent a good bit of time today making phone calls 
> to try and clarify which was the correct part number.
> I called a local dealer who looked up a number which was MT-91. I
> questioned whether or not this one had a vent tube plugin. They didn't 
> know, as it wasn't in stock anyway, and would have to discuss it with
> the distributor.
> I got bored and decided to call Interstate directly. They seemed to
> be interested in helping at the customer service level, but when I
> needed to ask about specific features (vent tube), things got worse. I 
> found from customer service that the part number I should be looking
> for was MTP-91. I was transfered to Techical service at which point
> his voice mail picked up the phone, and I gave up. I hate waiting a
> week for a call back when I need an answer today. I'd prefer a busy
> signal to voice mail any day.
> I got in touch with my local dealer and he had spoken with his
> distributor and claimed that the MTP-91 was superceded with the
> MB-66. To further complicate the situation, they couldn't get me one
> of those till next week either.
> The next step was a trip to another local dealer for interstate
> batteries. Arriving there I found the MB-66 sitting on the shelf,
> however it was short a few CCA's from what I had previously in the
> car. The MB-66 was only rated for 550 and was a significantly smaller
> battery than the Autobahn 650CCA battery I needed to replace.
> 
> Finally I had to buy a non-vent tube battery, as a proper one just wasn't 
> in the cards this time. I did buy an interstate, a MT-41 which has the 
> 650CCA's that I wanted, and the same size as the correct battery.
> 
> I live in hickville, and sometimes its difficult to do anything
> quickly. If I didn't need the car running today, I might have waited
> for something else to be ordered.
> 
> The problem is, now I am probably exposing the lock pump and
> other electronic goodies under the seat to excessive acid fumes.
> 
> David