Red, Blue or Yellow?

[ntsqd]

In a similar vein, a then 17-18 y.o. friend of mine from BC drove his Early Bronco clear to the Rubicon, ran that trail, and then drove it home. No big deal except that somewhere well south of Portland, on the way down, the Alt quit. No funds for a replacement. He did the rest of the trip by bumming charges off truckers in roadside rests & the more local friends that he ran the Rubicon with. Somewhere on the trail the batt. got loose & got into the fan. Some duct tape fixed the hole thru the case. The battery finally died after that cell dried out b/c he didn't catch that the duct tape had dried out & peeled off something like 2 or more years later.

Stories like this & others posted here or other places make me a firm believer in this brand of battery. I hope that they get or have gotten what ever caused the nearly recent rash of tales of woe sorted out.
Prior to Optima's being on the market the "insider" info I was given was to buy Implement application batteries as those reportedly have plate straps top & bottom.

 

[DaveInDenver]

Now back to the red top. The battery that died was eight years old. I do have one that is older and still going. I tested it and it had only four volts. With a load it would go to nearly zero. With no warranty left I said, what do I have to lose? I'll try charging it.
The "automatic" charger I was using says it will not charge a battery with less than four volts. Sure enough it trips the internal breaker several times before maintaining a steady charge. After an hour the voltage is up to six volts , finally. I still think this may be useless, but leave it to charge overnight.
In the morning I arrive to find a green light and a fully charged battery. Testing it with a load it performs just as it should.

Your experience is fairly similar to mine recently. When my timing chain broke last fall, I got a 2 block tow to my garage. But since my garage faces an alley, I had to use the starter to move the truck into the garage. I also had to move the truck from one side to the other, otherwise my tool box was blocked. Anyway, this moving around didn't do a lot of good for the charge on the Optima, so I meant to charge it before I set it aside while I rebuilt the engine. Naturally, I forgot and left it sitting mostly discharged from November until April, when I got ready to finally start the new engine. I realized my error when I checked it and it was at ~6V. I put it on my charger and it immediately spiked the 10A setting and shut down, so I set it on trickle overnight to see what would happen. The needle had dropped to zero and it looked good in the morning. When I switched the charger over to high range, the needle jumped and slowly fell back to zero, so it looked like it was charged. Put it in, cranked the engine for about 2 minutes in pulses to build oil pressure, hooked up the fuel and spark, cranked again for a minute or so and it's been going now for a month in regular duty. I can't imagine being much harder on a battery, I'm happy with mine. It sits for weekends at subzero temps while we go skiing, it deals with 90 degrees in the summer, bouncing around off road, the occasional use to move the truck with the starter, slow drain listening to the radio. Maybe I'll be unhappy with a new one, I dunno how I could be any happier with my current one, though.

 

[DaktariEd]

FWIW...I came home with an Optima Yellow Top 34/78 for my FJ40.

I am looking forward to seeing how it works...and how long it lasts!

:sombrero:

 

[ZooJunkie]

Cool!

 

[Desertdude]

FWIW...I came home with an Optima Yellow Top 34/78 for my FJ40.I am looking forward to seeing how it works...and how long it lasts!
:sombrero:

:Astrologist: I look forward to your real world test in the desert heat... :chowtime:



:::

 

[pete.wilson]

Hey

My wife's Grand Cherokee has a relatively new Duralast Gold in it; then she left a light on and when I checked it when I got home, absolutely nothing. I stuck the charger on it for about 3hrs and it fired right up. I used to run an old 86 CJ7 with a AMC 360 in it and it had a Optima red top and it work great in MI and here in KS. No problems with either, duralast much cheaper. One thing about autozone is at least the stores are almost everywhere and the prices, reasonable. I will buy the biggest duralast gold I can for my suburban.

 

[cruiser guy]

Is it the type of battery that is affected by cold, as I have always found electronics in the winter to go thru cells like water. Granted, the heat we have here isn't easy on car batteries either, but I always thought cold was worse. Any hard info on this?

Consumer Reports had an article on automotive batteries a while back and it indicated that heat was worse than cold but there are different batteries for hot climates than there are for cold climates. The battery you by in Phoenix, AZ is NOT the same as the one you'd buy in Prudhoe Bay, AK, EVEN if you bought them in the same store!