The reason that Exide can equalize-charge a battery bank is because the battery bank is designed for the cycle. Car batteries, ... are not.

Deep-cycle flooded-cell batteries differ in many ways from car batteries: the plates are usually thicker and fiberglass-reinforced to handle the heat of long charge cycles and stay together when sulfated, the space beneath the cells is usually deeper to handle more sluffed-off lead-sulfate from operation and charging/equalizing, etc.

Also, for equalizing batteries the voltage must be carefully controlled, not just an open charger with a voltage floating higher as the load decreases. Active boiling must be controlled.

Shotgun-style equalization as outlined above might or might not work, but remember that you're creating lots of hydrogen gas (which is of course explosive), overheating a battery that isn't designed for it, and boiling sulfuric-acid. Might work, might fail, might be catastrophic. I only equalize batteries that are designed for it, with proper safety and procedural steps taken, using a computer-controlled charger/inverter designed for and matched to the battery bank.

Oh, and the original battery still starts my wife's '96 Ford with 110,000miles, even when she leaves the dome lights on all night.

Might check into the source of the US Bosch batteries, I've been told that they are JCI / sourced in the US.

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Gone to the dark side

- Jeff