My Optima Battery Failures

[Xavier]

Okay, long story short, I have gone through two Optima Batteries in 4 years. I am giving the batteries a benefit of a doubt and am asking is there as specific reason they can be failing on my car? Something electrically wrong? Something I can do to protect it?

First failure, bad coil, leaking battery.
Second failure you can read this post; when diagnosing, confirmed the battery would not accept the charge, confirmed bad battery.

Electrical Failure

Both failed within a couple months after the warranty expired. Hmmmmm.

[brettco]

I've had a number of the optimal go bad on me and gave up on them.same with Interstate.

[fleiss75]

Is it a Red Top? I have gone through 2 and I have no miles on my car. It constantly dies.

[Three Peaks]

There was an interesting post on ffcars.com just about 2 weeks ago describing how to charge an apparently dead Optima battery. Obviously from the article, once the Optimas drop below a certain level, most battery chargers won't charge them until they are at least 11 volts or something close to that.
The solution seems to be to hook another battery to the Optima and hook up the charger. Once the Optima battery reaches the 11- 11.5 volts, you can disconnect the other battery and complete charging the Optima battery until it is up to snuff.

Bob

[Xavier]

I was at Autozone again today, they had 5 Optimas on the floor that are bad just today, I looked at the date tags, all are less than 2 years old, all were replaced by another brand off-the-shelf battery with more cranking amps. One guy was in line with me with a Red Top, same story as mine, keeps on having to replace it and went with another off-the-shelf like me.

As far as the elusive charging, that maybe true and I do appreciate you sharing it, but they do not talk about it anywhere and who the hell wants to go through that hassle? I have to pull a battery to charge a battery? Huh? Why wouldn't I use battery "b" and just use it instead of the Optima? So when these race cars Optima (whatever poor sap that might be) battery dies, the race team has to get a second battery to charge it? Oh Lord...the other thing is my battery was not dead before this, its a So Cal cruiser. It just dies internally, so regardless, my situation has nothing to do with it not getting a charge or getting charged. Again Three Peaks, I appreciate you mentioning it, but if the FFR post is true, it just confirms this is not the battery to have for me.

There is one more name brand I will not use again. A lot of hype and big name brand with no delivery. Their biggest strength appears to be marketing.

I just but another brand, 3 year warranty, $100 bucks and 170 more cranking amps. Done.

[zrayr]

I had an red top Optima in my 289 for 8 years. It worked fine all that time, but no more than a month between starts. Most of time I was driving the car several times a week. Last month it just was dead. I don't know if my luck with Optima batteries is the norm or not, but a battery that lasted 8 years with continual use is pretty good.

Z.

[BDR879]

I bought an Odyssey 1200T on the recommendation of my engine builder. he steered me away from the Optima's due to high failure rates. With the Odyssey, car fires up every time....even after sitting for a few weeks.

[WardL]

The guy I bought my Cobra from put a Wal-mart battery in before selling it. It works fine so far! I'm embarrassed to have a Wal-mart battery, but it works great. And I bet the price was right.....You can't even see the battery with the cover on.

[Pete Munroe]

Guys,

My first Exide Select Orbital lasted 5 years on a 6 year guarantee.
When it pooped out, it was giving signals, slow cranking, only in the last 2 or 3 days.

The first one had been tortured with 2 dead alternators to total discharge, but recharged ok. Again, got 5 out of 6 years.

Took it back where I bought it, private store, and they honored the warranty...don't remember, but the amount was significant, at least 1/6th of purchase price.

The "new" one is almost (!!??) 4 years old now...holds a charge. Try to trickle/low rate charge if I haven't driven the car for a few weeks. Fully charges in less than 15 minutes.

Have to wonder if all the Optimas' that failed were of a particular series, vintage, or a sub-contractor that skewered the reputation into junk.

Thanks

[ERA Chas]

My previous Redtop lasted 6 years, and said 'Made in Colorado'. I replaced it 3 months ago without failure. The new one is identical except it says 'Made in Mexico'.

Could this be the cause?

[Silverback51]

Mine is 3 years old and still working like a champ.

[BT SNAKE]

I must be one of the lucky ones. I have used them for 15yrs. I got 7yrs out of one and 6 from another.
I still have one in the GT and Cobra as well as my 92 Mercedes.
I'm not happy about the Made in Mexico. I'll be looking for a USA battery from here out. I'm trying real hard this last two years to buy American made products. Damn it's hard to do. But we got to start somewhere.

Hersh

[rustyBob]

I have a yellow top Optima and its a POS and will get replaced with a better brand soon...

[DC COBRA]

I have had some red tops in some of my cars 6-7 years old and still going strong. Even after sometimes them sitting 6 months before starting. I got 2 electric gates that I put red tops on about 2 years ago, have had them replaced twice now and those are charged with an electic charger everyday. Did some research awhile back and seen where optima was bought by another company like 3 years ago and their quality has suffered severely. Do a google search and you will see plenty of failures in the last three years and some talk of the buyout being bad for company reputation. Optima started out as a Swedish company, then bought by a Mexican company I believe, quality no more.
DON

[Paul F]

What is the attraction for using Optima batteries? There are several battery vendors making AGM and Gel Cell batteries, but it seems Optima has people's attention.

[Excaliber]

Spiral wound technology I think is the big issue. It's more robust against vibration, packs more punch in a smaller size,,, and the marketing is excellent!

[Excaliber]

Maybe BT Snake isn't "lucky", per se, perhaps he's simply "doing it right".

A couple of common things can greatly impact the life of a battery. Running it down to low is #1. That causes sulphation of the plates and is non-reversible, run it down to low to many times and it will die an early death. Over charging, that burns the plates, permanently damaging them. But the alternator is regulated so how you could over charge? Leaving a trickle charger on it could do the trick, some are regulated better than others, some are not regulated at all. Some will result in an over charge and damage the battery. Of course using a standard battery charger can easily overheat the battery in a much shorter time frame. Your "quick charge" method could also lead to a "quick death" down the road

Actually, do you KNOW what your voltage regulator regulates too? I've seen several that would allow over 15 volts, 14.2 is good, 14.6 is max. Anything greater than 14.6 is going to cause a premature battery failure, or make it die right on time (when the warranty is up)!

And then there are the "deep cycle" batterys, not a good choice for an auto. This type battery likes a SLOW charge, due to their typical use, they often get a BIG, FAST charge, overheats them, shortens their life span. Deep cycles will accept a higher amperage input over a longer period of time than an ordinary battery will. That is NOT good for them, it's just the way they are. That fact could lead to not only over heating the battery but also over heating (and burning out) the alternator. The alternator will definitely work harder when charging a deep cycle than it will when charging a regular battery. The amp output will stay higher, longer, with a deep cycle, more stress on the alternator.

Some thing's to think about for those who seem to have chronic short life battery syndrome...

My two year warranty Walmart battery is going on four years, but I sense it is time for a replacement. I've never run it down to low, never overcharged it, use a good regulated trickle charger if the car is parked for an extended period of time. I take care of it, it takes care of me. Maybe, like BT Snake, I'm just "lucky".

[Rick Parker]

Generally these cars dont have a real high consistant amprege draw. They have an ignition box such as MSD which pulls 8 amps, 1 or more intemitant fans that pull 15-18 amps, and of coarse lighting. I personally (JMO) think the electrical systems are often overdone with 100 amp alternators and mega amp large heavy batteries. One of the main benifits of a Mini starter is that it provides large torque through gear reduction and in exchange uses less electrical current allowing the use of a lighter gauge wire. That's why all OEMs use the smaller starters. Lighter weight componenets and lighter wiring all save weight.

Johnson Controls owns Optima.

[DAVID GAGNARD]

Originally Posted by zrayr

I had an red top Optima in my 289 for 8 years. It worked fine all that time, but no more than a month between starts. Most of time I was driving the car several times a week. Last month it just was dead. I don't know if my luck with Optima batteries is the norm or not, but a battery that lasted 8 years with continual use is pretty good.

Z.

The red top Optima in my street car is going on 8 years old, the one in my race car is 4 years old, no problems with either of them.........

Maybe the older batteries are better made than the newer ones.......

David

[CobraEd]

I am thinking about an 11lb Braile battery to save 25lbs of unneeded weight. Anyone have any info or comments on Braile???


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