Anybody successfully exchanged a 12V at the dealer under warranty?

Several months ago the OEM 12V in our 2007 was down to around 15 AH capacity and I took it to the Toyota dealer where it was purchased. Not in the car, loose. They gave me a huge run around about how it had to be in the car to be tested, and there was a charge to test it, and so on. This was just before the 2 year "full" warranty was to expire.

At the time it wasn't reliably testing bad on typical load testers because it still had enough capacity to supply the rated CCA. (Once per full charge, at least.) So I left.

I tested it again today and it is down to 7AH, at least according to the little HF smart tester. It gave a 10% state of health, 100% SOC, 28mOhm resistance, and a "BAD - REPLACE BATTERY" message. I think that is probably right since it charged from 12.47V to 12.76V using something like 3AH. That is, the charger almost immediately dropped the charging current to 1A, and it ran for 3 hours before it went into maintenance mode.

I will test it at a car parts place too, because their tester will be more like what the dealer would have.

The question is, have any of you taken a battery back to the dealer in a state like this and successfully exchanged it (or bought another pro-rated)? If this had been an Autozone or the like this would be easy, but at least the one dealer I bought the battery from seems to want the service department to test batteries, and they only do that when it rolls in installed in a car. Seems silly, and they didn't put it in the car in any case, I did.

I have the sales invoice to verify the date. Would it still apply at a different dealer, for warranty purposes?

 

Walmart has "EverStart Platinum AGM Automotive Battery, Group Size S46B24R 12 Volt, 410 CCA" for $180.

EverStart Platinum AGM Automotive Battery, Group Size S46B24R 12 Volt, 410 CCA - Walmart.com

That's at least $40 less than any of the Toyota dealers would charge for their battery. Not sure what the prorated cost would be if I can get them to accept that this one has failed, but I'm also not sure it is worth the hassle of fighting with the dealer over just how dead the battery is. The car will still go to ready, but the battery is clearly circling the drain and do I really want to wait until the car won't start before they will categorize it as failed?

Most EverStart's are made by Johnson Controls, which are usually OK batteries. If the EverStart tests bad at some point at least I won't have to deal with Toyota service to replace it!

Edit: If I enter the vehicle information Walmart's site says: "Note: w/Smart Key Only". Pretty sure that this is an archaic reference to when the non Smart Key Prius used a 32AH battery. It's not like the car tests the battery for capacity and refuses to work if it is 32 AH when it should be 45 AH, or vice versa.

 

Really? Isn't (at least part of) S46B24R a full size specification?

https://www.batteryequivalents.com/bci-battery-gro.up-size-chart.html

24R is in the second chart and gives the size in mm or inches. It is one of the subgroups for type 24 batteries.

Is the OEM 46AH battery not also 24R? The one in my car now is one of the these:

https://www.yuasabatteries.com/battery/s46b24r/

Fits fine.

 

Not sure if ours had been modified or if it was made after they finally decided that using two battery types for essentially the same car was a bad idea, but ours takes a S46B24R.

 

Tested the battery again on its posts in the trunk this morning. Previous tests were at the jump point. It tested much better when attached directly at the battery. In fact it tested completely good, which it isn't.

This little Viking tester (from Harbor Freight) isn't great with this AGM battery. If the connection is a bit off (as it apparently was at the front) it will fail the battery. But at the back where it had a good solid connection it doesn't do a long enough load test. It can't - there is no cooling on this small hand held device. I know from applying a real load for a long time that the battery was down to around 15AH capacity, and that it is probably even worse now from the most recent recharge times and currents. But the little electronic tester only tests for a few seconds. It seems that in that short time the battery can run more or less at its specifications, but it cannot maintain that performance for very long. With this Viking tester the battery will probably test at 45 AH/ >400A CA capacity right up to the time the battery completely dies at 0 AH actual capacity.

Anyway, at least that means the need to exchange it is postponed until it more reliably tests as bad.