Optima batteries- they still the best?

[buknbronco]

i have the yellow top optima. I ran it for a year or two, then it sat for almost three years while i rebuilt my bronco. I went to start it up for the first time in 2 years and no problems.

 

[roundhouse]

My yellow top didnt last about 2 years, and for the $$ I just cant see it.

I buy used batterys at the local Advance or Autozone for $20 each and have had much better luck with them.

 

[Brewbro21]

Get whatever battery that has the best warranty. Duralast gold at Autozone has lasted me 8+ years can't beat that.

 

[JaxLax]

i'm on yellow tops # 6 and 8


as long as i can keep gettin em fer free, i don't worry much.

PS. 2-5+7 were my fault (i wired my duals wrong once (2 dead) and hooked them to a constant hot not switched once (2 dead after sitting for 2 weeks))

 

[roundhouse]

Just stay away from the ones at NAPA, they dont last and NAPA rufuses to warrenty them, I ve had 3 of them go bad in the last year on our work trucks and ended up buying another battery at a different store.

 

[RRRAAAYYY2]

Well, my Optima(s) are going on 6 and 5 years with no problems, no corrosion, no anything. I can't say that about any battery that I have ever owned. I will be purchasing another Optima. Also, I have a thing about originators: Often some upstart company has to drag all the big guys kicking and screaming into the future, as Optima did with all the established batery companies. Now they all have similar versions. Same thing happened with roll-on travel luggage, and many other items over the years. For that they deserve some support. Unlesss they start buying from Communist China, like Walmart. Then you have my blessing for dumping them.

I don't want to start an arguement, but there are some things I would like to add to your post. Optima's from 3years ago or older, I still consdier to be great batteries. It is the new ones I have a dispute with.

Optima didn't drag anyone into the future, they came up with a different design (way of presenting) and introduced AGM technology to the public. What the originators didn't do was go after the public market, nor did they waste space by using a spiral design. The only thing companys copied from Optima is the spiral design, and that was based on consumer appeal, not functionality. The big AGM manufacturers have never copied Optima, they just never went after the public market before. Hawker still hasn't gone after this market to boot.

For the record S.C. Johnson Controls owns Optima, Interstate, and now Delphi. S.C. Johnson Controls does not like manufacturing anything in the US or Canada. They prefer Mexico and China as places of origin. I cannot say that Optima has gone off shore foresure, but I can let the following facts speak for themself:
1.) S.C. Johndon Controls buys Optima
2.) The retail price at COSTCO for Optima drops to below the Distirbutor cost for authorized Optima dealers. This means they were either making a super huge profit before, or the cost of manufacture dropped dramatically.
3.) The warranty rate for Optima at my shop went from under 10% to over 75%, with 90% of the warranties being new batteries, less than a year old.
4.) Two Deka 734/78 wet cell (regular car batteries) out performed three blue tops in my drag bike. The Deka's provided more power, and never melted. Where as the Blue tops melted the inner plate connectors ever time.
5.) We have replaced over 20 yellow top (new ones) in darg cars with standard 734/78 (before the Intimidator was available) and they out performed the YT in durabilty.

So my final thought is keep using your original optima's, but when the time comes to replace them, I wouldn't consider them an option, as they are not the same battery you bought 6+ years ago.

 

[RRRAAAYYY2]

I had some problems with optima red's if you kill them dead they dont like to come back....warranty at autozone x2 other than that seems to start my truck just fine

No battery likes to cycle completely flat. About the only type of battery that can comeback from this repeattedly is a true gel cell. Even AGM ones like the Intimidator and Optimas don't like deep, deep cycles. Usually your only chance to recover them is a really slow trickle charge. Sometimes you even need to hook them in parallel with a good battery just to wake them up and get them to accept a charge.
The way of the futrue is a lot of battery companys and distributors are starting to NOT except a battery for warranty unless it is fully charged. Tricky as there are manufacturing defects that can cause this and thus make it a true warranty situation. But they reality of it is a battery is not designed to be fully discharged, thus they have been eating warrantys for years, that really wasn't their fault.
I would say in 5 years almost every company will be doing this. The battery market is a real whores market, with no profit margins so everyone is looking to shave costs from somewhere. So no deserving warranties are a great place for them to look to save some money.
Just thought I would warn everyone.

 

[MarsChariot]

I don't want to start an arguement, but there are some things I would like to add to your post. Optima's from 3years ago or older, I still consdier to be great batteries. It is the new ones I have a dispute with.

Optima didn't drag anyone into the future, they came up with a different design (way of presenting) and introduced AGM technology to the public. What the originators didn't do was go after the public market, nor did they waste space by using a spiral design. The only thing companys copied from Optima is the spiral design, and that was based on consumer appeal, not functionality. The big AGM manufacturers have never copied Optima, they just never went after the public market before. Hawker still hasn't gone after this market to boot.

For the record S.C. Johnson Controls owns Optima, Interstate, and now Delphi. S.C. Johnson Controls does not like manufacturing anything in the US or Canada. They prefer Mexico and China as places of origin. I cannot say that Optima has gone off shore foresure, but I can let the following facts speak for themself:
1.) S.C. Johndon Controls buys Optima
2.) The retail price at COSTCO for Optima drops to below the Distirbutor cost for authorized Optima dealers. This means they were either making a super huge profit before, or the cost of manufacture dropped dramatically.
3.) The warranty rate for Optima at my shop went from under 10% to over 75%, with 90% of the warranties being new batteries, less than a year old.
4.) Two Deka 734/78 wet cell (regular car batteries) out performed three blue tops in my drag bike. The Deka's provided more power, and never melted. Where as the Blue tops melted the inner plate connectors ever time.
5.) We have replaced over 20 yellow top (new ones) in darg cars with standard 734/78 (before the Intimidator was available) and they out performed the YT in durabilty.

So my final thought is keep using your original optima's, but when the time comes to replace them, I wouldn't consider them an option, as they are not the same battery you bought 6+ years ago.

RRRAAAYYY2,

Thanks for the taking the time to add the good comments to this thread. I like a man who has facts instead of hearsay. One documented shop record is worth 100 personal experiences in my opinion.

I think your numbers regarding the rate of warranty returns over the last few years pretty well lays the initial question to rest.

Bottomline, based on your numbers: Optimas were once great, and they did the public a service by bringing the dry cell battery to the public market. For that they deserve a salute and a gold watch as they step out the door and into history. They deserve credit especially for letting us common folk in on a good deal. (Whether it performs better or not might be a personal evaluation since one big criteria for some of us is that we do not miss cleaning the battery connections and dealing with crud of wet cells; then the longevity of the original Optima sealed the deal for a lot of us.)

But Optima appears to have lost its momentum and will, and the vacuum is being filled with other better manufactured products that have noticed we liked the dry cell for the reasons noted above.

Now the big question that requires documentation is:
1. For those wishing to stick with dry cells, which company now makes the best battery?
2. For those wishing raw battery performance (of some particular characteristic, like cycling depth), who makes the best wet cell? It appears that the answer to question 2 is Deka (whoevever that is - they need some advertising badly).

This has been one of the best threads yet.

 

[jate]

I sold my Optima battery and replaced it with an Odyssey. They are made by Hawker and are based on the technology they use for the batteries they provide to the military. They are slightly more compact than an Optima. You can check they out here http://www.batterymart.com/battery.mv?p=ODY-PC1200MJT

 

[Mark]

I sold my Optima battery and replaced it with an Odyssey. They are made by Hawker and are based on the technology they use for the batteries they provide to the military. They are slightly more compact than an Optima. You can check they out here http://www.batterymart.com/battery.mv?p=ODY-PC1200MJT

Sounds like a good one!

 

[Frankenhorse]

I see Summit sells the oddesey also!

 

[RRRAAAYYY2]

My thoughts on dry cell manufacturers:
Pretty much consider to be the best by many EV Racers is the Hawker Genesis line of batteries. They are super high quality and have a very proven track record. When your budget is unlimited, they are the way to go. i.e. they also are one of the most expensive on the market. Though their price has come down a bit in the last couple of years. Which worries me more than it makes me happy, if you know what I mean. But it is not a dramatic price reduction, so it may be attributed to higher sales volume.

The Deka battery is very good quality as well. Very, very close to the Hawker. There is a big price difference though. So my thought is the Deka represents better value. Especially if you can get Remy batteries pricing on it. (Which is below my cost).

When it comes to wet cells. Delphi is very high quality, calcium/calcium construction. Basically it comes up a to a coin toss between them and East Penn/Deka. Mind you about two years ago some of Delphi's import batterys started being sourced out. And now that they have been bought out by S.C. Johnson, I have already greatly reduced my inventory of Delphi, on a just in case basis. I have gotten shafted several times with batteries, so I am not taking chances anymore.

An added component of the East Penn line is that they set the plates in epoxy in the bottom of their high end batteries. This reduces the chances of warping and also helps supoort the plates, which normally hang off the seperators. They also have a new silver alloy series, which I know little about.

East Penn/ Deka advertising is very questionable. The reason boils down to who do they advertise. The majority of their batteries get relabelled. Some get labelled o.e. Ford, some o.e. Harley, etc. In fact I am considering doing it for the Intimidator, calling it the SVA something or other. In the US they have four divisions that basically divide the US into four zones. Each has it owns name (I don't know them), and I think each relabals the batterys as well. So it would be hard for them to advertise one and not the other, and each wants not to be connected with the other.

Here in Canada they were always called Power Surge. This year they finally have change their name to East Penn Canada, so hopefully the batteries will follow suit.

Now to deep cycle applications. Trojan is very famous for these, and we have had little problems with them. They are found o.e. installed in just about every electric golf cart and most R.V.'s. They are a few price points higher than US Battery or Deka. My warranty rate between Deka and Trojan has been pretty much the same over the past 5 years. So I would pick one based on price.

Now comes the poly ions, cadiums, etc. Poly Ion is getting more and more popular. They are also getting bigger, as in size. Probably by 2010 they will be an affordable first choice for us. Right now they are two expensive, and a bit complicated to be using in a car/truck application, that is not full time electric. Hear is the real kicker with these, China is actually more or less leading the way with these, a very scary thought.