[s-cars] Optima battery

[Igor Kessel]

Folks,
my battery gave up this morning. The test revealed the following:

Overall voltage: 11v
Standby current consumption (all doors, trunk, hood closed): 51ma
Individual cells' charge: 1 - 50%, 2 - 50%, 3 - 0%, 4 - 50%, 5 - 50%, 6 
- 50%;
Verdict: the cell #3 is shorted, the battery is kaput.

Now, here is the most bizarre part of the story. My records indicate
that I installed this Autobahn battery at a local dealer under
warranty on 20 October 1999.
The sticker on the battery says: 60 month warranty.
Today's date is 12 October 2004.

Gotta love this German precision. Or would it be better described by the 
term "planned obsolescence"?

I called up my local dealer and asked about the warranty replacement. 
Well, just as expected, I'd get almost next to nothing for my battery 
due to the pro-rated coverage. This has effectively ruled the dealer out 
of the equation.

Since I couldn't bring myself to wasting $80 on aregular Group 48 Lead 
Acid crap with a reasonable life expectancy of 2 years, once again I 
decided to get a good battery for 1.5x this price. Only this time around 
I wanted to try the Odyssey.

However for some unclear reason the Odyssey dry cell batteries appear to 
be roughly $50 more expensive than the comparable Optima dry cell 
batteries. As the popular proverb goes, money talks... Besides Odyssey 
batteries are only available mail-order, whereas the Optima are now 
being sold retail by just about everybody: Sears, Pep Boys, Autozone...

Conveniently enough Sears is currently running a sale on those 
batteries, so I just got one for $116.99 and mounted it under the seat.

You might want to save the following information for your future reference:
1. The Optima battery is rather tall and if mounted vertically it will 
interfere with the metal seat carcass, which is hazardous. You'll want 
to mount it sideways. For the sideways mounting get the regular Red Top 
battery 34/78 for GM vehicles, not the Orange Top battery with reversed 
polarity suitable for the European cars.  It fits perfectly in there and 
the <+> gets properly position on the RH side of the vehicle with the 
sideways installation.
2. Buy a longer negative lead. The OEM 14" strap is just a hair too 
short. I had to buy a 16" lead for $8.99 in Pep Boys.

-- 
Igor Kessel
http://home.comcast.net/~KBATPO/