Thread: optima Battery

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sounds like your T may have a load on it when the key is off ? look at a leaky diode in the aternator

Could be, I am running a one wire from Speedway. Definitely worth looking at. I do have a cd player under the seat that draws some to keep the memory up too. Probably not enough though to worry about. Will check it out. Thanks, Don Jr.

Optima red top fan here - starts every time whether sitting for a day or a month plus.

David

Originally Posted by 406Rich

Ok guys battery is dead, its 8 years old, thinking of going optima, pros / cons anybody have opinions.....

One thing I'll add about the Optima's - the spiral wound technology is a very ineffecient approach for plate surface area to battery size because the six pack look wastes all of the space between the tubes. The flat plate arrangement of the XSPower/Odessy style is much more compact for equal plate area.

Because I race electric cars (www.electrathonamerica.org), I have a bunch (14) of Optima batteries on the rack in my garage. I started out using the red tops and am now gradually changing to the yellow tops. Our race season normally runs from November through May. After the last race in May, I fully charge all the batteries, put them on the rack and ignore them until November. When I go back to prep for the first race of the season I check the charge on all the batteries. The ones that are still fully "up" are good to go, the ones that haven't held their charge get taken back to my local supplier to be tested. Every time that's happened so far, the "questionable" battery has been sub-standard and in need of replacement. I am yet to have one last less than 3 years; most go 4+. Right now I have 6 red tops I'm still using, the newest pair were 4 years old last April. The rest are over 5 years old. (My yellow tops were all purchased within the last year, so the jury is still out on those) My point is, if you have an Optima battery that is less than 3 years old and it's not holding a charge, take it to your dealer for testing and possible replacement.

I have an optima red top mounted on it's side. I have to keep a tender on it if it sits more than a week or so. It may not be the battery's fault, though.