After shredding our OEM ones during hard off-road driving, we had previously evaluated SDHQ’s heavy-duty battery terminals. The newer terminals were a lot better than the super weak stock parts but in our long-term use, they would occasionally work slightly loose during driving. We determined that the taper in the terminal was slightly less than the taper found on the battery post. Because of this, with a lot of vibration, the terminal could get squeezed loose. The truck would lose electrical power and you would have to tap the terminal down to make good contact. We were talking to SDHQ about this and they told us that they had addressed the issue and now have a Gen II terminal set that has a more accurate taper in the terminal in addition to having an additional high-power mounting bolt.
The new Gen II terminals seem to grip the battery posts very tightly We don’t have any additional accessories to test on the extra high current terminal mounting bolts so they are currently not being used. We don’t think they will vibrate loose. Even the old terminals will not tear apart like the stock parts easily can. Strong terminals are often overlooked but in off-road driving, It is important to have strong terminals and a strong battery hold down to prevent shorting out or losing power at a bad time.
We didn’t use the large SDHQ terminal covers that came with the kit but stuck with the stiff plastic stock part as we felt that we didn’t need the extra room they have for a bunch of the new power wires and we liked how the stiff plastic might be better in preventing things from shorting on the positive terminal in case stuff got loose and started bouncing around while driving offroad. We might install some new auxiliary driving lights soon and in that case, we can test the new high-current power terminals as well.
The SDHQ Gen II battery terminals are something every Toyota truck owner who drives off-road a lot should have, especially if you have good suspension and can take the whoop de dos, jumps and bumps at speed!
