On two occasions I've had Duracell AA batteries with early failure and in both cases the batteries leaked.

The 1st time was in the case of a simple inexpensive wall clock which I had recently replaced the Duracell AA battery. I was surprised when I quit working because I had just replaced the Duracell battery a couple weeks prior. Battery Dated 2013

When I pulled the clock down from the wall I noticed the battery had leaked and the corrosive nature of the chemical had destroyed the battery holder area of the clock and had to be disposed of.

I spent some time on google trying to find out if there was any replacement offers like what used to be offered by Eveready years ago. No chance. I emailed Duracell but have not heard back from them, its been a couple of weeks now.

I did find that RayOVac batteries do have a printed Warranty and Guarantee to replace equipment damaged by their batteries. Duracell does not.

The 2nd time happened just this morning, this time in an expensive Canon 580EX flash. I turned it on, no work, opened up the battery compartment and one of the Duracell AA's top is busted open and leaking all over the battery compartment.

These batteries were a completely different batch. All batteries were dated 2013 and had been working the week before. In both cases the batteries and equipment were not exposed to any extreme temperature conditions.

Fortunately I seem to had caught the leak in the flash early enough and clean up the leak. Hopefully I was able to save the flash by cleaning out the reside.

I the past years I've run through a log of batteries. I've always found Duracell reliable, and long lasting.

Apparently they are having some problems with quality.

Since I've discovered the problems and also discovered they have no easily found guarantee or warranty to replace damaged equipment I will no longer purchase or recommend Duracell batteries.