bad optima battery...any other negative experiences?

[Brett Dikeman]

On Fri, August 26, 2005 10:00 am, Mark R wrote:
> I've personally used and sold a lot of them over the years.  What
> seems to fail them is if they sit for a long period of time and drain
> down.

Well, Optima claims they have lower internal self-discharge (obviously
there's still the vehicle electronics), and that SLA chemistry doesn't
sulfate as quickly.

This battery has been in active use and I even have a small solar panel in
the rear deck to offset radio/ECU/seat memory drain during the day.  It
hasn't been discharged anywhere near as low as 10.7 volts, minimum voltage
for any lead-acid battery.

> Just like any battery, if you maintain it, they last a long time.
> Personally, I had one last 7 years on a daily driver.  I've also had
> one fail in a customers car that basically sat 4+ months straight.
> That battery lasted 2  of these cycles and was dead.

Well, if it was slowly discharged and then charged back up by jumping and
then running the car...yeah, that certainly could fry the battery,
although I would expect Optimas to be more tolerant of this than other
batteries, since plate surface area is so high.

Does Optima have any charging guidelines for the red top, ie recommended
charging rate?  Haven't seen any on their site- did you get anything as a
dealer?

Brett