Optima batteries

[Fat Felix]

I bought my 01 1500 Silverado with an Optima yellow top battery mounted in the bed. The battery has a sticker date of 11/06 and the gauge cluster just started to flash "BATTERY" at each start up so I figure it's time to replace the thing. Now I'm wondering if you guys can give me some insight on the value of spending $200 for the optima versus $100 for a Duralast.. Double the cost seems like quite a bit, but is it worth it?

[SPONSOR]

Membership in the largest desert racing community has its advantages - Participate in Forum Discussions - Send and Receive Private Messages - Maintain Public Photo Albums - Access to Groups - User Profile in our Social Network - Increased Access to more Sub Forums - Reduced Online Advertisements Join our community today

[Brandon_Charley]

I've read a lot of bad things bout the current manufacturing quality of Optimas, and a lot of good things about Odyssey's. I would look into an odyssey PC 1500.

[az_amsoil]

Buy your Optima at Costco, never any return issues and they are ~$150

[OptimaJim]

Fat Felix, before you commit to replacing the battery, you may want to verify that it needs replacing. Fully-charged, your YellowTop should measure about 13.0-13.2 volts. Although your battery is five years old, it is possible it has just been getting slowly discharged and just needs a good charge with a battery charger.

The quality of our batteries has never been better and many of the “bad” batteries returned to us now are just deeply-discharged and work fine, when properly recharged. If anyone has any questions about our batteries, I'll do my best to answer them.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.facebook.com/optimabatteries

[Fat Felix]

Is the free diagnostic service/charge by Autozone or Kragen give my battery a full charge?

[F1shifty]

no, you need to get your own charge and put it on a trickle charge overnight or so. Then load test it, not just voltage. They can have the voltage and not the cca behind them. Hate to say it but ive heard bad quality issues with optimas as well. Enough to lead me not to buy one.

[OptimaJim]

Fat Felix, while the vast majority of our retail partners will properly charge a battery before testing it, it wouldn't hurt to fully-charge the battery yourself, before bringing it in for a load test. Carbon pile-type testers will yield the most-accurate results, but the accuracy of any load test is VERY dependant on the voltage of the battery being tested. A load test on a battery that isn't properly-charged will not be accurate.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.facebook.com/optimabatteries

[dan200]

Jim. thanks for coming on here and representing Optima. Its always nice to have somebody do that. FWIW all of my optimas have performed very well. Boat and truck.

I have a question for ya and hope you can offer some insight. It is widely speculated that the batteries offered at costco are of a lesser quality. People say they still buy them because of the fantastic return policy costco has though. Are they the same and is the fail rate that we hear about a bunch of BS or are thy different in any way? Because ya hear the costco ones suck quite a bit, enough that the rumor seems to have teeth.

Thanks.

dan200

[OptimaJim]

Hi dan200,

I've read those rumors (and many others) and the short answer to your question is that Costco gets the same batteries as every other Optima retailer. One of the things that makes Optima somewhat unique in the AGM marketplace, is that we manufacture all of our own batteries in our own facility and they are the only batteries made there. We never re-brand or re-spec any of our batteries for any of our retail partners. Storing your battery on concrete won't hurt it either (I see that one that all the time too), although all stored batteries do better when fully-charged and stored in cool, dry locations. I will say that people who tend to abuse products seem to have a knack for finding retailers with very liberal or “no questions asked” return policies.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.facebook.com/optimabatteries

[dan200]

thanks Jim.