My Optima Battery Failures

[jon@harrison.ne]

I appreciate the heads up on Optimas. I put an orange top in my 289 when I built it in 2002 and it's still fine. Apparently the company made its reputation on those early batteries and then trashed it. Glad to know-I would have bought another when I finally need one. Thanks guys.

[Excaliber]

I don't know if Optima is having trouble with the newer ones or not. I take anecdotal posts with a grain of salt.

For instance, seeing a bunch of batteries, Optima or whatever, as "returns" is a tough way to determine the quality. What you see there would be typical of most manufacturers of any given product. There will always be a percentage of returns, and a percentage of those are going to be consumer problems not neccesarily manfacturer problems.

Johnson Controls is a really BIG player in the battery manufacturing arena, it has a pretty solid reputation. They make a bunch of batterys with various brand names, like the Sears Die Hard for instance and many others.

The thing is, "Optima" is THE global brand from Johnson Controls, it's hard to imagine they would sacrafice quality on their primary product. Sears Die Hard and other brands would be hard to know about, Johnson builds them to the customers specs, if the customer want less quality to save money, Johnson will do that.

[Excaliber]

Just "Googled" some stuff on Johnson Controls. They make:

Duralast seen in Autozone stores, Diehard - sold in Sears, Kirkland - the Costco brand, Motorcraft - which Ford sells, some of the EverStarts, and Interstate. Johnson bought out Delphi, which makes Walmart and AC Delco.

So, no matter what you buy, ya gotta wonder, "Who really made it?"

I'm pretty happy with my cheap Walmart, as far as that goes...

[WildBill3]

Wow im soo unhappy with the (Neverstart) bateries it not even funny I quit on diehard and ACdelco also hmm im seeing apattern here.Last year in a very cold snap we had was the last straw.I bought 2 new ones from Oreily's and waaalaaa no more cold cranking problems onthe Deisle pickup my son had bought his from ther and had talked about them several times.Time will tell.

[Excaliber]

Well another choice is Exide, they also are one of the big three battery manufacturers. The Exide brand name is THE Exide battery, their primary product carrying their name. They also make many other brands for any customer that walk's in the door.

[vector1]

here's a battery conversation going on in another forum, this appears to be a rep from optima--

Hello, I noticed your conversation regarding our batteries and wanted to offer some assistance. If you are drag racing without an alternator or use your fans or water pump in between runs, you should definitely be using a battery designed for deep-cycle applications, like our YellowTop. RedTops offer plenty of cranking amps for starting, but as Piledriver indicated, YellowTops and BlueTops (except for the 34M) are designed for deep-discharges.

I should also mention that even though our batteries have a “sealed” design, all lead-acid batteries can vent gas. Under normal operating conditions, an AGM battery will not vent gas. Since alternators or chargers can fail, the safest and correct mounting method for trunks and passenger compartments is to make sure that any possible gas venting will escape to the outside of the vehicle. All vehicles with original equipment battery locations in trunks or passenger compartments will have a vent provision that should be used.

Our group 27, 51, 78, 34C, and 31 batteries all have ports for connecting a vent hose. Although people do it anyway, we would never recommend installing an unvented battery in any enclosed space, because there’s a legitimate, albeit unlikely, safety risk involved.

For example, IF there is a voltage regulator failure, and IF the battery is severely overcharged, and IF this goes unnoticed, and IF the battery vents because the internal pressure exceeds the release pressure of the vents, the gasses are both flammable and toxic. This may sound like a lot of “ifs,” but attorneys and engineers get paid to plan for every worst-case scenario.

The quality of our batteries has always been excellent and has continued to improve, since Johnson Controls acquired us in 2000. Many of the “bad” batteries returned to us now are just deeply-discharged and work fine, when properly recharged. This is not a situation unique to Optima, in fact, some other manufacturers have elected to void the warranty on their batteries, if they are discharged below 10 volts.

In many of these cases, the owners probably didn’t realize that most battery chargers will not recognize or charge any battery that has been discharged below a certain voltage level. The threshold varies from one charger to another, but can often be as high as 10.5 volts. If a battery (of any brand) has been discharged below this level, the charger simply will not work. The parallel charging instructions explained in this video can effectively recharge many of those batteries- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIoaL3DWWEg

The key to long battery life, regardless of brand, is to make sure your battery is always at or above 12.4 volts. When batteries are discharged below that level and allowed to sit, sulfation begins to diminish both capacity and performance. That makes a quality battery tender or maintainer an excellent investment for any vehicle that is not driven daily. If you have any questions about our batteries, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.

[Xavier]

Vector1,

An excellent post with reading. Thank you for posting this.

[OptimaJim]

Hello, I noticed our batteries being discussed in a few different threads and even though vector was kind enough to re-post my comments from Speedtalk, I’ll probably end up repeating a few things, but I wanted to make sure I was also personally covering my bases.

First of all, Xavier, I’m sorry to hear about the problems you’ve been having. What kind of battery tender or maintainer are you using and what setting are you using? Although it probably isn’t an issue, can you tell me what your “key-off” load is? Our batteries do tend to stand out more, due to their colored tops, but five returns in one day seems excessive. If you could PM me with the contact information for the retailer, I’d like to pass that along to some of our folks. As I mentioned before, many of the “bad” batteries returned to us now are just deeply-discharged. Retailers are supposed to “charge and check” all batteries returned under warranty and the vast majority do that, although that doesn’t always happen.

If anyone has any questions about our batteries, I’ll do my best to answer them.

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

[tigerplk]

To all of you having trouble with Optima batteries, I have used them exclusivly during my last 10 years of car collecting and have them in seven cars. I have only one original that I bought in 2004 and it is in ERA #238 and still no problems, "I guess it just loves the cobra". I had an older one that gave up on life two years ago, and both of these were made in America. The other five cars all have a made in Mexico sticker on the battery and have been replaced so many times I think at this point the five have had battery replacement about three times apiece. Thats what NAFTA did for us.
Tiger

[Bill Bess]

I used Optima batteries in a studio truck (4 at one time). They gave me long life, and didn't make a mess, most lasted over 4 years, so no complaints from me. The one in my cobra is going on 4 years old and only went dead on one occasion when I left the blower on for 3 hours with the motor off.
I like them because they are clean and don't vent a lot of acid into the car.
Bill

[JWilly]

I have a dumb question...The battery tenders I have, have a setting for "standard" battery and "AGM"...what is the difference in the way the tender works in these two settings?

[snakebittexan]

I wonder how many of the failures weren't on a trickle charger? I've always kept my "toys" plugged in and my Harley or boat batteries would last 4-5 years or more while friends without a charger would be replacing theirs every year or two.

[SP01715]

There is a similar thread going on the Jeep Forum (OptimaJim is over there as well). There are alot of people over their having similar problems with Optima. I went away from Optima a while ago because of failures with batteries after only a couple years of service. I have had good luck with Odyssey AGM's, and the Sears Platinum series is made by Odyseey and I have heard good things about them. The Sears warranty is supposed to be alot better than Optima as well. OptimaJim seems like a busy guy...

[badrich]

Optima has been given a bit of a hard time here lately, so I feel a need to add my two bits worth. I purchased my Cobra nine years ago and my Red Top Optima has been in the machine for over ten years, giving excellent service, even with the car being unused for several months a couple of times. I have given it a trickle charge twice, but not anything else. In spite of the bad press, I'm inclined to stay with Optima when I finally need to lay my old battery to rest. Besides, I just added a really nifty aluminium billet battery holder that's custom made for my battery, and it looks so nice! Rich

[Tim Brewer]

I've had an Optima for seven years now. But, for the past four or five years now, I've had to have my starter rebuilt. This last rebuild, I was asked if I was using an Optima battery. I asked why and he told me that he's been seeing a lot of starters with the insides melted like mine caused by too low a voltage by Optimas. I'm not sure why he has singled out Optimas, but he told me it has been a trend. I went to Sears and bought a Die Hard Platitum GSM. Fits into my old billit aluminum Optima holder and has more than a hundred more cca's.

[wetdog]

Optima in jeep since 1998 keeps on cranking , popular in the jeep world because when you flip over the caps dont come llose and pour acid on passenger.
I would buy another in a minute..WD

[SP01715]

The older Optimas seem to be good. It appears from what I have read they started having problems when they moved manufacturing to Mexico.

[Bxx1]

Originally Posted by SP01715

The older Optimas seem to be good. It appears from what I have read they started having problems when they moved manufacturing to Mexico.

I have been told the same from battery retail sales people as well. One retailer sells Optima and confirmed SPO1715 post. I have also heard from those retailers that the Odyssey AGM's have not cut their quality and are now considered better than Optima.

My Yellow top Optima is at least 7 years old and I use a battery tender. When it goes I will be getting the Odyssey.

[tmareina]

I've had my Optima for 4 years now..it has 2-3 months between starts during the winter months and this is the first year I had to give it a fresh charge as it went dead. It charged fine and continues to hold it's charge. I now put it on the battery tender every month or so just to keep it charged...I didn't do that before.

[Mike Bartlett]

I have had two 6V Optima Red Top which are connected in series in my Cobra for 7 years with no problems. I think I charged them once when I had an engine starting problem and cranked it so much it about killed the two batteries. They came back no problem after a charge.

As far as my other cars/boats. I use what is cheapest been pretty happy with Costco which I have two in my Diesel truck, one in my wife's Benz and one in my Toyota van. All good with those.

In regards to warranty, IMO, all you get with the more expensive batteries is longer prorated warranty which you pay for up front so what's the point. I would rather buy a $60 battery from Costco then a comparable battery from an Auto Parts store for $80-$100 bucks. The higher priced one sure doesn't last any longer and dealing with the prorated crap just drives me crazy.

Mike