Many regional battery distributors, or "Sticker Shops" as I call them, re-label batteries to create more market share for a particular brand/manufacturer of battery.. The most often re-labeled batteries for marine use are Deka /East Penn, Johnson Controls, Superior and a few others.


The labels slapped onto batteries are occasionally not at all representative of the battery physically wearing the sticker.


For example I have seen many marine batteries that are actually 4D or 8D starting batteries labeled as either deep cycle or dual purpose. I have also seen 4D & 8D dual purpose batteries labeled as deep cycle. West Marine is at least honest in their labeling of the Deka / East Penn 4D & 8D flooded batteries and they call them Dual Purpose.


Here is a good hint, there are only two companies I know of building a true "deep cycle" 4D or 8D flooded batteries and those are hand made by Dyno Battery up in Washington state & Rolls in Nova Scotia Canada.. Any other flooded 4D or 8D, no matter what the sticker says, is not a true deep cycle battery. Just because they are big and heavy, don't be fooled by the sticker unless you pay the premium for a Dyno or a Rolls..


Regional Distributor "Sticker Shop" Issues:


Not to pick on Ultra Power, which are stickered up by a regional battery distributor, but it appears that when shipments get delayed, or stock gets low, I can occassionally find the same rating / specifications sticker on different batteries made by entirely different manufacturers!!! Scary stuff I know!!


Back in 2009 I had a customer with two Group 27 "Deep Cycle" Ultra Power EV27 "sticker shop" batteries. One was apparently physically made by Deka / East Penn and the other apparently by Johnson Controls. These batteries (pictured) were in a parallel bank and were flat-ass dead in under 2.5 years.


Despite being different products, manufactured by two different companies, both batteries had the same deep cycle specifications of 110Ah on the Ultra Power sticker. Deka to my knowledge has not manufactured a 110Ah deep cycle Group 27 marine battery.. Odd at best....


Look very closely at these two batteries, bought the same day, at the same vendor and labeled identically. The cases are not even close to the same design, the terminals are different, the handles are different, the caps are different and they are likely not both 110Ah batteries.


Caveat emptor when buying sticker shop batteries...


P.S This installation is not and was not my work!