Ooisay Car Battery Replacement Experience Review

It's just one of those days when you wake up, get into your car and your car refuses to start. I've had probably 5 of these days in my 12 so years of driving. And I had one today.

Normally, the reason for this is a dead battery, and it proved to be this case again. I called my insurance company for their complementary rescue service and waited for them to arrive. In the past, the battery costs I have been paying has been escalating. I remembered paying RM90 for my Kancil and then RM150-180 for my Myvi. The last change I did last year costed me RM220 for a maintenance free one for my Myvi which I got from Enos. This year, I changed my car to a Hyundai Tucson, and I was pretty worried how much it would cost me. From my investigations online, if I did it in the Hyundai service center, I will be charged RM350 for a Century Marathoner, which I read lasts less than a year. My insurance rescue service quoted me RM320 for a similar battery, and I decided I should find an alternative.

After 30 minutes of browsing while waiting for my rescue guy, I found two guys who are willing to come over to my place. One didn't have stock of my battery, and another wanted to charge RM275 to come onsite. All were Century batteries. I then tried searching for one nearer to my home and that's when I stumbled on Ooisay Car Battery.



If you live in Kepong area, you are bound to have passed this giant LED screen.

Taken from Ooisay website

I've always found their LED amusing, and I remembered once during the election period they placed something like "Vote for Ooisay". And I always wondered "who on earth would want to come to this unknown location in Kepong to change their car battery???". Well, I know now.

Ooisay is apparently the largest online car battery seller in Malaysia. Well, perhaps they are the only one, if you are looking for one with a full web store front with payment and courier delivery facilities. They have a very strong web presence thanks to their good use of Google Ads and Facebook page. Strange name, yes, and apparently the boss' name is Tan and not Ooi as I found out later. The fact that they sell car batteries online is to me a niche market as I am not sure how many people in Malaysia are willing to change their own car batteries. I am a guy with an electronic engineering background and I never changed my own car batteries before (I guess I have a fear of getting electrocuted). It seems like a simple process, but some special tools are required and my battery is to my surprise 17kgs heavy. That limits the purchasers to men who are willing to get their hands dirty and are willing to order stuff online. Having said that, Ooisay website http://carbattery.com.my is really well done with lots of tips on car batteries and even a section which you can select your battery based on your car type. Very useful indeed.

Ooisay is the only online company I find selling Yuasa branded batteries. Initially I was apprehensive about this brand. Never heard of it. But from online reviews, Yuasa seem like a reputable brand. Yuasa is actually a Japanese brand and the batteries sold here is actually made in Sungai Petani. It doesn't do any advertisements locally like Century so it relies on mechanics and word of month. I'll never know how reliable this battery is until at least a year before I get to comment. So for now, my review will revolve around the service I received from Ooisay rather than comment on the battery itself.

So I decided to just jumpstart the car and drive to Ooisay. On their website, it is stated that the battery of my size is available (NS70L-MF based on the website) and is found at a price of RM259. I did try to call the numbers provided online, but they were unanswered. Their opening hours are not written on the site as well, but I found that it's 9am to 7pm from Mondays to Saturdays.

The location itself is well known to Kepong locals, but would probably be a challenge to find if you are not from here.

Entrance to Ooisay

Once I arrived onsite, I was quite surprised at what I found. Their office is literally a converted container. It's a unpretentious setup and run by a one-man-show, a nice chinese chap by the name of Ah Yee (his name card says Gee) who greeted me.

This is their Kepong office. Cute.

The workshop. 

I asked for my battery to be changed and he provided me with the price of one based on the current battery installed. I asked to change my battery to a bigger capacity one (NS70L instead of 55D23L) and he said it can be done (in fact it was RM10 cheaper), but he'll need to do a little minor operation on the sheath that covered my battery currently. He double checked the size and I agreed to let him do it. He first checked to make sure my battery is indeed dead with a industrial battery checker machine. Confirmed dead coz the needle went from OK to dead pretty quickly. He proceeded to stamp my battery with a paint date stamper and installed my battery. Here's a few points that I liked from his service to me compared to all the other battery change services I have ever done:

Gee hard at work

1. He did not just pull my battery out and swapped by batteries. Doing this would mean my clock and electronics would be in a reset mode. Instead, he kept the car engine running and replaced the battery.
2. He did a series of tests to see the behavior of my car on how it actually charges the battery in various scenarios. For example, he tried with full load (air con, headlights at full blast) and no load; and when the car is idle and when the car is revving. Interestingly, he found that my car actually does not charge the batter when it is in idle mode, and that means I should never keep my car lights on when I am idling (e.g. while waiting for someone in the car). 

After I am done, I paid for my battery with credit card, yet another additional convenience for me. The battery comes with a standard one year warranty, but Gee said it should last at least 1.5 years. According to their website, their batteries last 2 to 3 times longer than other providers, so only time would tell.

I had a small chat with Gee and found that Ooisay is opened by a Singaporean and they have a branch Singapore. The one in Kepong is basically a storage/hub for delivery fulfillment. They used to do on-the-spot battery replacement but they stopped that service due to challenges they faced by customers (e.g. non-paying ones). So now they only do online businesses and the occasional drop-in customers like myself (they had customers all the way from Putrajaya dropping by). The online servers are located in Singapore and the boss Mr. Tan is a man who believes in processes. I also found out that the numbers advertised online belongs to Gee, but he only answers his phone after 9am (and if he is not busy).

All in all, I really enjoyed the service provided by Ooisay and Gee. It was fast, affordable and professionally done. I'll be bringing all my battery needs to Ooisay without hesitation although the quality of the Yuasa battery is yet to be known until at least a year from now. If you buy online, there's even a RM20 discount, although you will be charged RM15 for courier.

To get there, here are the GPS coordinates: 3.194228, 101.642871 

And the address is:

3A, Jalan Helang Merah,
Kepong Baru Industrial Estate, Kepong,
52100, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

Opening hours Mondays to Saturdays, 9am to 7pm.

Oh, and you must visit the loo while you are there.

Gee, they must be pretty pissed. No puns intended.