Optima...YAY or NAY!?

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Lots of people like them, but lots of people have horror stories; too many for me. Good old batteries work great for me. My '78 has a Costco battery that was a couple years old when I bought it 5 years ago. It has never failed to start, even after sitting for a couple months. My '76 has something similar. It's going to get a big AGM deep cycle and an isolator pretty soon, but I'm keeping the generic auto parts starting battery until I have a good reason to replace it.

I've always had the best luck with Interstate batteries.

In my truck I run a pair of Sears Diehards, mostly because they have a no-questions warranty. The truck eats them in about 3 years. I get the 96mo warranty and they pay for more than half every time.
 
Fast Eddy said:
I've always had the best luck with Interstate batteries. .
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wife 80 it's running now Interstate .. best warranty down here .. so I'm giving a shot ..
 
Damn...this is a great blend of opinions on the topic.
Glad to know BOTH sides. It interesting that the quality had dropped after they moved to Mexico?
Like the idea, but I might look at other alternatives recommended here.
 
out of curiosity, how do I know what battery I need?
The gel cells arent all that expensive??? I was expecting more.
 
Dry Cell Batteries

Any experiences with these???
Weight and space savings would be nice....:hhmm:
 
chicago said:
Dry Cell Batteries

Any experiences with these???
Weight and space savings would be nice....:hhmm:
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Someone who knows more about race cars can explain better than me why you cant use those, but I believe they are just starting batteries, not intended for heavy draws or powering things for a long time with out a charge. My rule of thumb was to aim for deep cycles, and stay away from "racing batteries" I found it kinda hard sometimes to determine what I was looking at when I started to look at the more obscure batteries (XS Power especially).
 
Gumby said:
I wouldn't buy another Optima for my wheeling rig. Too much time between good slow charges. They don't like fast charging and I end up having to jump it, move it , jump it, move it too often. Gets good and charged 8-10 times a year. The rest of the time it gets abused.

I park it in my shop and have to move it out of the way a lot. YMMV.
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This ^^^^^ they dont like to be ruffhoused much.

Theres good optima owners and bad optima owners.

Its not about "the old ones are better" or "they went to s*** after (-------) bought them" that tells ya if they are good or not.

They are not a good battery.

They are not a bad battery.

They are a different battery.

People that like them tend to have them in a daily driver or something that gets driven at least once or twice a week.

People that hate them tend to have rigs that sit for long periods of time between runnings.

The optima battery needs daily maintenance to keep it in tip top shape. If they dont get a daily charge they will slowly get worse and not come back. You all can go ahead and tell me all your wives tales on how to "revive" a dead optima, but a dead abused, neglected optima will never come back 100 percent EVER.

An optima is like a cordless phone. If ya never put it on the charger it wont last more than 10 minutes if talking. If ya put it on the charger after each call it will be good for 1-2 hours talk time.

If you are hard on batteries and winch allot and dont drive every day then dont get an optima. A good winch will burn the terminal nuts right out of the side connections also.

If you need a good battery for your fj60 you drive everyday or a new battery for your wifes saturn then hell yeah, an optima will last along time.

I just hate how the optima battery company markets its batteries to guys with boats, RV, 4x4s, hotrods, orvs, muscle cars and other rigs that are not daily drivers.

They should push them to folks at new car dealers.

I vote NO optimas for myself. I have 5 junk optimas in the battery pile and lots of good lead acid plate batteries in ALL my rigs from my diesel tow rig to my wheeler to my tractor.
 
4rnr said:
Someone who knows more about race cars can explain better than me why you cant use those, but I believe they are just starting batteries, not intended for heavy draws or powering things for a long time with out a charge. My rule of thumb was to aim for deep cycles, and stay away from "racing batteries" I found it kinda hard sometimes to determine what I was looking at when I started to look at the more obscure batteries (XS Power especially).
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Gotcha...though something like that WOULD be nice for a tight engine bay. Ill look into some of the batteries that you had listed ealier in this post.

Chop Shop said:
This ^^^^^ they dont like to be ruffhoused much.

Theres good optima owners and bad optima owners.

Its not about "the old ones are better" or "they went to s*** after (-------) bought them" that tells ya if they are good or not.

They are not a good battery.

They are not a bad battery.

They are a different battery.

People that like them tend to have them in a daily driver or something that gets driven at least once or twice a week.

People that hate them tend to have rigs that sit for long periods of time between runnings.

The optima battery needs daily maintenance to keep it in tip top shape. If they dont get a daily charge they will slowly get worse and not come back. You all can go ahead and tell me all your wives tales on how to "revive" a dead optima, but a dead abused, neglected optima will never come back 100 percent EVER.

An optima is like a cordless phone. If ya never put it on the charger it wont last more than 10 minutes if talking. If ya put it on the charger after each call it will be good for 1-2 hours talk time.

If you are hard on batteries and winch allot and dont drive every day then dont get an optima. A good winch will burn the terminal nuts right out of the side connections also.

If you need a good battery for your fj60 you drive everyday or a new battery for your wifes saturn then hell yeah, an optima will last along time.

I just hate how the optima battery company markets its batteries to guys with boats, RV, 4x4s, hotrods, orvs, muscle cars and other rigs that are not daily drivers.

They should push them to folks at new car dealers.

I vote NO optimas for myself. I have 5 junk optimas in the battery pile and lots of good lead acid plate batteries in ALL my rigs from my diesel tow rig to my wheeler to my tractor.
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Chop chop.
That is a good commentary and one that essentially describes my situation. This rig is a TOY. Wont be a DD, and probably WONT get started MUCH every week. I didnt realize that the Optimas needed a good alt. charge frequently for them to last.
My 62, I always had a wal mart battery in it, and it was fine. Never had any issues with it except the battery cap fallin off when wheeling. My situation here is that I dont have a designated spot for a battery yet, and Im looking for positional versatility if I need it. Hence the dry cell idea. Although, I could position it FLAT if needed if I take that space where the blower motor sits on the fire wall.
 
chicago said:
Gotcha...though something like that WOULD be nice for a tight engine bay. Ill look into some of the batteries that you had listed ealier in this post.
Click to expand...

Check out these

AGM « XS Power

They are TINY and WAAAAY light! but if you read the testimonials they are almost ALL positive. The competition car audio guys love them and then use them in those stupid cars that use like 5 of them, and are quite hard on their batteries. They regard them as the best. There are a few people who have used them in offroad apps, and have tales of torture with no problems and they are swearing by them.

I almost bought a D925: (I found it at summit for 139.99!!!) Weight Lbs. - 23.54
Weight Kgs. - 10.70

Length - 6.5 in
Height - 4.92 in
Width - 6.93 in

Based on reading, I considered it to be most compareable to Odyssey as far as performance. And much better than Optima.
 
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Here are some discussions on various small batteries that people use in off road toys and race cars. If you want something for a vehicle that is only used a few times a year and under very hard circumstances, Asking a off road racer is the way to go :D

Compact Battery Options
 
Chop Shop said:
Not always. Racers will stand behind bad parts all the time if they are free.
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That is true to a certain point. But if a racer feels that they lost a race because of a specific part. They'll bitch up a storm..
 
cruiser88 said:
Whats their current warrrenty?
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down here 18 months full warranty no question ask .. that means you can go with your 17month old batt and they will give to you a new one ( in the new one you will only have one month warranty tho )
 
Chicago, where did you find a cheaper Odessey ?

I recently did the battery search and of all I picked the P2.
For the 214 you get more battery than the optima. It is just a hair bigger. I have a blue top optima for 10 years and it was going good. I moved the old optima to aux. duties and put the P2 in as main batt. The P2 is heavier than the optima by quite a bit. It is dry cell. The cranking amps and amp hours are better. Soooo, after alot of research IMO the 214 for the P2 is decent. Show me where you found an odessey of equal specs for 214 or less ??? Plus, find a vendor that has stock of odesseys that is rotated, NOT, those things sit on shelf for years. Plus Sears warranty is killer. I think it was 12 bucks for the lifetime replacement and it was 7 years IIRC they will replace it at no charge.
 
peesalot said:
Chicago, where did you find a cheaper Odessey ?

I recently did the battery search and of all I picked the P2.
For the 214 you get more battery than the optima. It is just a hair bigger. I have a blue top optima for 10 years and it was going good. I moved the old optima to aux. duties and put the P2 in as main batt. The P2 is heavier than the optima by quite a bit. It is dry cell. The cranking amps and amp hours are better. Soooo, after alot of research IMO the 214 for the P2 is decent. Show me where you found an odessey of equal specs for 214 or less ??? Plus, find a vendor that has stock of odesseys that is rotated, NOT, those things sit on shelf for years. Plus Sears warranty is killer. I think it was 12 bucks for the lifetime replacement and it was 7 years IIRC they will replace it at no charge.
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Peesalot...
I'll post the link up to the site later this eve. I was actually gonna link it, but... It was a mail order deal on the web obviously.
I googled dry cell, odessy battery and gel cell and came across a while site on just batteries and accessories for them.
 
4rnr said:
Check out these

AGM « XS Power

They are TINY and WAAAAY light! but if you read the testimonials they are almost ALL positive.
Click to expand...

The XS battery is 20% smaller than the one I'm looking at for the same AH rating, but almost 3x the Craigslist price I'm looking at. :rolleyes:
 
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