I bought a 2003 MF1455v last summer. The seller was proud that it still had the original (Yuasa) battery... I thought about replacing it, but instead I put my last solargizer panel on it to see if it would recover it and keep it going. Today, it's back to normal.
I think one of the reasons tractor batts do so well is that there's just not much electrical draw in a tractor vs. a car or truck. And not much chance to leave on a dome light, or headlights, and run down the battery. Batteries REALLY don't like being run down, and they especially don't like sitting low for a time. Even if you never have to say "oops, I left something on", most modern vehicles have low levels of parasitic drain all the time. This drain probably does small amounts of damage that accumulate over time to destroy our batteries faster.
As for replacement batteries, since Walmart stopped carrying the good yellow top Everstart Maxx batteries, I've been buying batteries from Oreillys. Their batteries are labelled "Super Start", but are actually made by Deka in PA. My oldest Deka batteries are in my truck and truck camper, at about 6 years old. They show no signs of dying anytime soon, but the camper has a solar panel on it, and the truck has a solargizer, and both live outside in the sun.
