Last Updated on: October 7, 2022
While the average service life of car batteries is three to five years, the performance of your car battery depends on weather conditions. So, if you are struggling with your battery in the cold season, I recommend getting a new replacement.
What are the choices?
Duralast and Autocraft are best-selling car battery brands and are comparatively similar in price range, build quality, and performance.
Both the batteries are products of Clarios LLC, the company that produces other big brands like Interstate Batteries. Duralast and Autocraft also offer four battery product lines for automotive applications.
Keep reading to discover which brand, Duralast vs Autocraft, is the best for your vehicle.
Main Differences Between Autocraft vs Duralast Batteries
The main differences between Autocraft vs Duralast car batteries are:
- The Autocraft brand is exclusive to Advanced Auto Parts, whereas Autozone owns the Duralast batteries.
- Autocraft batteries are made for users in warm weather zones, whereas Duralast models are suitable for all weather conditions.
- The Gold series is the best-selling product line for Autocraft, whereas the Platinum EFB is the most popular car battery series for Duralast.
About Autocraft Car Batteries
Autocraft Batteries is a proprietary brand of Advance Auto Parts manufactured by Clarios LLC. The brand features various car battery types for different market segments.
Autocraft automotive product lines include Autocraft Economy batteries, Autocraft Silver, Autocraft Gold, and Autocraft Platinum AGM series.
In December 2019, Advance Auto Parts (AAP) announced the acquisition of DieHard batteries, a successful automotive battery brand in North America. It has replaced Autocraft car batteries as the primary brand in the AAP stores.
Below is a brief overview of the prominent Autocraft car battery product lines.
Autocraft Platinum Series
The Autocraft Platinum batteries feature Absorbent Glass Mat battery (AGM) technology and are ideal for cars with high-powered electronic and entertainment accessories.
AGM batteries feature a glass mat filler between the lead plates that absorbs the electrolyte and keeps it suspended. This design enables better discharge and recharges efficiency and high cranking power.
Another outstanding feature of these car batteries is the utilization of PowerFrame Grid technology to minimize corrosion, making the batteries more durable and reliable than the competition.
Additionally, the positive grid is optimized to provide up to 60% better current flow within the battery for more consistent starts.
The average Autocraft Platinum 12V AGM battery has a reserve capacity of 120 minutes, which allows you to drive for approximately two hours if your alternator fails.
The Cold Cranking Amps of 750 CCA mean you can start your car quickly in the cold season, and the deep cycle models feature a 70Ah battery capacity. The batteries come with a 3-year free replacement warranty.
Autocraft Silver Series
The Autocraft Silver line offers mid-range batteries made to meet or exceed the power and performance of your stock battery. The wet cell batteries are ideal for most vehicles with little power drain and come with a 2-year free replacement warranty.
The typical Silver series battery has a battery voltage of 12 volts and comes with 600 cold-cranking amps, making it ideal for mild-weather environments.
If you live in a low-temperature zone, you might want to consider the Gold and Platinum AGM series that gives you 750 CCA and above.
While it is the most affordable Autocraft battery series reviewed here, the Silver models deliver reliable cranking power and consistent performance for small vehicles.
It comes with a 100 minutes reserve capacity, which is better than other batteries in this price range. Also, its unique stamped grid design with calcium makes it more expensive than similar-sized batteries.
Autocraft Gold Series
Autocraft Gold is the best-selling series of this brand, offering better features than other brands in its price range. It is a high-performance battery with excellent starting power for winter weather and power output for various onboard electronics.
The Gold series features the innovative PowerFrame positive grid technology developed by Clarios LLC to reduce premature battery failure from corrosion. It enables superior cranking power over the battery’s service life and is more efficient than other grid technologies.
Autocraft Gold are wet cell batteries with an average cold-cranking amperage of 700- 875 CCA, making them ideal for cold environments. The average reserve capacity rating is 130 minutes and comes with a 3-year free replacement warranty.
About Duralast Batteries
Like Autocraft, Duralast batteries are a product of Clarios LLC, manufactured for Autozone. It is a trusted brand in the North American market, offering a broad range of battery models for automotive, marine, and industrial applications.
Pro Auto Thought: You might want to have a look at our article regarding Duralast against a competitor brand before continuing with this post — Duralast Vs Valucraft.
The Duralast battery product lines include Duralast Battery, Duralast Gold, Duralast Platinum EFB, and Platinum AGM. Let’s look at them below:
Duralast Gold Batteries
The Gold series offers a range of 12V wet cell batteries made to meet or exceed the cranking power of your stock battery. The batteries feature a stamped positive grid to optimize current flow within the battery and reduce corrosion.
The Duralast Gold batteries have a cold cranking amperage of 450 CCA -700 CCA and a reserve capacity of 45 minutes – 130 minutes.
The models also feature a polypropylene outer shell that protects the battery on impact and the best-in-class vent system for safety. On average, they have better specs than the Autocraft Silver series but are at par with the Autocraft Gold batteries.
Duralast Platinum EFB series
The Platinum EFB batteries are the mid-tier models of this brand, falling between the Gold series and the heavy-duty Platinum AGM series. The Enhanced Flooded Battery (EFB), like this Group 78 model, is an optimized wet cell battery ideal for start/stop systems with moderate electronic accessories.
The advantage they have over the Gold series wet cell batteries is that they have 1.5x more charging cycles and superior partial/deep discharge performance.
The Duralast Platinum EFB batteries feature cold-cranking amps values of between 500 CCA and 770 CCA with reserve capacity ratings of 80 minutes to 150 minutes and an average battery capacity rating of 75 amp-hours.
Duralast Platinum AGM batteries
The Duralast Platinum AGM series offers the top-range models for this brand. The AGM design makes the batteries leakproof and provides a larger contact area to produce more starting power than conventional wet cell batteries.
The Duralast AGM batteries, like the Group 49 models, provide twice the cycle life of the Gold series batteries and recharge faster. The spill-proof design enables mounting the battery sideways and has a robust construction with excellent vibration resistance.
The AGM batteries have a cold cranking amperage of about 435 CCA to 950 CCA and a reserve capacity value of between 45 minutes on the low end and 140 minutes on the upper side.
Pro Auto Thought: If you’re still having second thoughts about Duralast batteries, then we urge you to read another comparative article — Everstart Vs Duralast.
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Conclusion
Duralast and Autocraft batteries feature similar grid and plate technologies to deliver excellent performance. I recommend weighing your car’s CCA and RC requirements to get the best car battery option between the Duralast vs Autocraft models. The Autocraft batteries have fewer cold-cranking amps and reserve capacity values, making them more suited for users living in warm to moderate climatic zones.
On the other hand, the Duralast batteries have higher spec values, making them a better choice for cold-weather regions. They are also ideal for heavy-duty applications, and the EFB batteries are a good compromise between the Duralast and Autocraft AGM models.