Stefano Pasini

 


A 'vintage' battery for my 409 (March 2014)


You must fit a battery that looks the part in your vintage car. It's very unappropriate to fit a modern battery so I looked around for a suitable item and found the 'Failla', made in Turin and fitted in a beautiful Bakelite case. The looks are good and it works very well, so I was planning to fit a similar battery will be fitted on the 403 as well...I was wrong


30 April: battery failure (nasty)



Unfortunately, the Failla battery ceased to work after a few operations and, what's (much) worse, it leaked acid all around the battery compartment, so we had to remove it immediately (left picture) The acid leaked under the car on the brake pipes as well (right) through the drain hole of the battery compartment. Upon inspection, it was clear that electrode n.1 was completely dead and shorted.
I asked to Failla to replace the battery. They said that their warranty comes after I've sent them the dead battery. I've tried but sending back a battery to the manufacturer is Big Trouble: you have to empty it of all its acid, pack it very well etc and spend money to ship it back to them to wait for an answer that could also be a no-no (the tone of the guy on the telephone suggested that he would never admit that his battery was faulty, so....). The effort is clearly too much for someone who has to work every day on other things.
Therefore, I can only tell you that Failla battery made a very poor show on my car both a) as a battery and b) in terms of aftersales customer protection. Enough said....