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Optima Batteries woes!

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Metalbender

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Sep 21, 2006
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I am on my 3rd Optima red top in a year. My first 2 batteries stopped taking a charge, and my latest one swapped polarity. How does this happen? At least they have a good warranty, but this is getting old.

:mad:
 
Optima quality has went down the shitter. I have replaced many in cust rigs that dont even last a year. I now run Exide orbitol(sp) and have been happy with their power/long lasting quality.
 
I havent been too impressed with red tops. Ive killed 3 of them in the past. They worked great until I killed them the first time then it was down hill from there...

Peanut has a yellow top which is kinda old and it totally kicks ass, Ive killed it with my stereo several times. Turn the stereo off, wait a few minutes and the rig will start to charge the battery back up.

Im on my second blue top exide. Works good for the most part. But it doesnt have the longest reserve time.
 
they need daily charging (driving to maintain). if put in a wheeler or hotrod that doesnt get run daily it starts to take less and less charge:booo: .

its kinda like a cordless phone, if you leave it on the charger it will work for long calls but if you only charge it at night or when its dead, they seem to drain very quickly and you cant seem to bring them back:mad:

I have about 10 dead optimas from over the years and am sad they seem to market them to people that have speacility vehicles that dont get driven much:rolleyes:
I have even tried thier deep cycles (blue and yellow) and they suck too. I have red, blue, yellow, orange, and a couple of funny looking red and black ones = all junk.

if used in a daily driver they are great and recover quickly and are sealed nicely:awesomework: otherwise=poop:puke:
 
I just replaced my one year old optima. Good thing they come with a warranty :rolleyes: .It got so bad I could not leave the door open when I'm working on my jeep. :looser: Dome lights = dead battery?! :haha:
 
battery

Metalbender said:
I am on my 3rd Optima red top in a year. My first 2 batteries stopped taking a charge, and my latest one swapped polarity. How does this happen? At least they have a good warranty, but this is getting old.

:mad:
Click to expand...

Optima had a rather VERY quite recall... Actually they denie any recall, but when I was working at a local parts store, my distributor came in and swapped out almost every optima I had on the shelf.. In every series. Then told us to test every battery before it gets sold... That is when I went to the Exide Orbitals. Same idea as the Optima, but improved core design. I have one in my Trooper (DD) and my Jeep, even my motor home. I have had ZERO problems. my .02
 
CHOP SHOP said:
they need daily charging (driving to maintain). if put in a wheeler or hotrod that doesnt get run daily it starts to take less and less charge:booo: .

its kinda like a cordless phone, if you leave it on the charger it will work for long calls but if you only charge it at night or when its dead, they seem to drain very quickly and you cant seem to bring them back:mad:

I have about 10 dead optimas from over the years and am sad they seem to market them to people that have speacility vehicles that dont get driven much:rolleyes:
I have even tried thier deep cycles (blue and yellow) and they suck too. I have red, blue, yellow, orange, and a couple of funny looking red and black ones = all junk.

if used in a daily driver they are great and recover quickly and are sealed nicely:awesomework: otherwise=poop:puke:
Click to expand...

If that is true it explains alot. Ive had to warrenty over 15 Optimas in the last 4 1/2 years, the same amount of time my rig has been trail only.......:eeek:
 
Great.... I just bought one.:booo:

I've heard of failures from shorting out internally.

In looking at the battery and reading about how it is built; i'm thinking the battery is sensitive to rough handling and impacts to the case causing internal shorts to the "cinamon roll" layering of the cells. Because of this, I built a custom rubber lined tray for mine which I finished and installed this last week. I'm hoping my theory is true and this ends up being the best battery I've ever had.........hoping. (Mines a blue top deep cycle)
 
Remember, you have to slow charge them. You cannot put them on a 20amp charge and expect them to come back to life. Put it on a slow 2amp charge for a long period of time, they will come back. I've had one red top for over 8 years with no issues. :redneck:
 
Jeepasaurusrex said:
I've had one red top for over 8 years with no issues. :redneck:
Click to expand...


Thats why you haven't had issues, the older ones don't have as many issues. I ran an Optima, and it crapped out on me. I forgot to turn my battery shut-off switch off in my wheeler, came out 2 days later to move the truck so I could do some work on it. it was stone dead. took it down to my local battery shop, they couldn't get it to come back. Tried to warranty it, but my reciept was on thermal paper and over the year I owned it, the ink faded and you couldn't read it so the shop refused to warranty it because I had no proof I bought the battery from them.


So I went to Exide Orbital. More battery for less money, and I've killed it twice in the last 18 months by not killing the shut off switch. Both times I just trickle charged it for a day and it came right back to life.


Optima's bring the :rb: :rb: :rb:
 
That is what happed to my first 2 I drained them not shutting off my shut-off and the last one I did shut off and 2 days after wheeling I went out to put it on the trickle charger and it sparked at me. (WTF) I checked it with my volt meter and it showed it still had 10 volts left negative charge
 
It seems like the older batteries last quite a bit longer. I have had a yellow top in my zuk for 5 years now and when I moved to portland it sat for almost a year with out running. When I went to bring it to bring it down it fired right up.
 
old, new, it dont matter they are all junk. I quite using them before they got shittty cuz they were already shitty, have been since day one.

and the slow charge **** is what the retailer says when making excuses for his shitty and expensive product. it doesnt matter how you charge them=junk.
they have such a low internal resistance it fools the charger into thinking it is charged, when it is not. start feeding it and after a little while it will start taking juice and max out the charger as the resistance changes:booo:

you can clip a test light on one for a couple of days and drain it completly and then charge it backwards if you like. it will opperate like normal, just display polarity wrong.:rolleyes:

wanna really have fun try diagnosing a combo of hot start probs and charging probs or regulator trouble. this battery will make each scenerio different than a standard lead acid plate battery and act strangly disguising the real problemm.:booo:

a lead acid plate battery will take more abuse. I have seen optimas fall over and make a little spark on the fender and presto=junk=burned inside=open circut.:puke: now I have seen old plate batteries burn through the backsides of hoods, melt cables, burn wrenches, fall over and make two holes in the inner fender well and still start the vehicle.:cheer:

try the welding with two optimas trick and see how long they last.:corn: now use some old plate batteries and presto your welding!!:cool:

think about large equipment, they havent gone to any kind of spiral cell cuz its not industrial and wont be reliable, same with semi trucks.

but hey they look cool like a 6 pack of beer.:awesomework:
why do you guys keep buying them one after another???????? dont you learn?
 
I've had mine over 3 years and no problems. It just sets on the trailer until I wheel it. I've probably used the winch 30 times with it too.:awesomework:
 

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