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Which Optima Battery To Buy?

Hey everyone,

I used to post here years back under my old user name SoCal Screw*, but I forgot the password and e-mail so I had to create a new account.

Anyways I currently have an Optima Red top battery (34/78), and it's about time for a new one. I've had this battery for 6 years, and there's only enough juice in it to start the truck now.

So I've been looking at a new one and have some questions. I have 2 Hella off road auxiliary lights. I plan to get maybe 2 more and definitely put a stereo in the truck at some time, as well as add H.I.D lights etc..

Should I be looking at getting a yellow top battery to power all this? Or even a blue top? I know the red top is just a basic upgrade over the stock battery. I am looking at the yellow top, well just cause it can handle all that I plan to add to the truck.

I am also looking at the blue top because it also has two other connection ports on the battery that I could possibly use to hook up my 2 Hella lights on.

Anyways as you can see I'm pretty confused as to which battery I should purchase. If anyone could offer me some suggestions as to which battery or maybe even another brand of battery that would perform better I would appreciate it.

Thanks everyone!

P.S Sorry for the extremely long post!

Blue top is a deep cycle battery. Yellow would be best for you.

A mod or admin will be along shortly to share your old password for your old account. Not allowed to have miltiple user names.

I have good luck with my Interstate Mega Tron Plus. Oprimas are junk and are not what they used to be since they sold to another company. Other members swear by Kinetic (iirc) and the Sears die hard equivalent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Stealth (Post 4259485)

Well the e-mail associated with my old account is no longer valid. I tried doing a forgot password and my two e-mails that I use permanently now do not work.

Also, I will have to look those two batteries up. Thanks.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turd Furguson (Post 4259484)

Blue top is a deep cycle battery. Yellow would be best for you.

Thanks I was leaning towards a yellow top.

No problem. They'll get you hooked up. Plenty of people wind up having that same problem.

I wouldn't buy an Optima either for the same reason Stealth said.. If you do a search you'll find alot of information on them batteries.. I went with Sears Platinum P2, 900cca. There basically and Odyssey battery in disguise. Odyssey make's the Platinum P2 for Sears.. and for ALOT less.

Hi ImAti0n, since your RedTop is still functioning for you, I’d like to ask you a few questions about it, before you get rid of it. Even though it’s six years old, it may still have some life left in it. What is the voltage of the battery when the vehicle is turned off and what is the voltage of the battery when the engine is running? Is this truck driven daily?

If you do decide to get a new battery, selecting a battery with the ability to be deep-cycled is a good idea, given the stereo and lighting upgrades you mentioned. Our BlueTops do have additional threaded top posts, but are otherwise identical internally to their YellowTop counterparts. The one exception is the 34M BlueTop, which is the marine version of our Group 34 RedTop starting battery.

The quality of our batteries has always been excellent and has continued to improve, since Johnson Controls acquired Optima in 2000. We still manufacture all of our own batteries in our own facility and they are the only batteries made there. We never re-brand or re-spec our batteries for any retailer. Many of the “bad” batteries returned to us now are just deeply-discharged and work fine, when properly recharged. Many battery chargers will not recognize or charge any battery that has been discharged below 10.5 volts. Optimas can be recharged with such chargers, by using the parallel charging technique explained in this video-

If you have any other questions about our batteries, please don’t hesitate to ask.

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

Quote:

Originally Posted by Turd Furguson (Post 4259484)

Blue top is a deep cycle battery. Yellow would be best for you.

Blue is a deep cycle marine battery, yellow is a deep cycle auto battery - and the only difference between them is the type of terminal posts they use, and the location of the posts.

get out of the optima state of mind, they are all hype...the only good thing about them is that they are sealed. i have a duralast "red top" and i've got a 1200W amp 2 10's, 2 sets of HID's hooked up to it(no big power drain), AMP research steps and i've had no problems with it, plus its literally 80$ less than the cheapest Optima out there.

Products like that advertise the greatest, but honestly they are no better than a standard or slightly better than stock batt.

Kinetic is where its at, have two in my boat and can listen to the stereo all day without a problem.

Interstate batteries have the best warranties out there..

Quote:

Originally Posted by OptimaJim (Post 4264344)

Thanks for the response. I will have to get back to you on the voltage. Yes, the truck is driven 365 days a year haha. I was thinking Yellow top, but I'm a little short on money since I'm a college student.

I will look into that charging technique since that may be cheaper than buying a whole new battery.

If I were to recharge my battery would it be like new?

Quote:

Originally Posted by wes1333 (Post 4264911)

Kinetic is where its at, have two in my boat and can listen to the stereo all day without a problem.

I'm assuming Kinetic is a brand of batteries? I will have to google that.

The best optima battery to buy is the one you leave on the shelf....

By a sears platinum or Kinetic if you want real performance battery.

Quote:

Originally Posted by ImAti0n (Post 4265022)

If I were to recharge my battery would it be like new?

Even if you are able to recharge the battery, it is still six years old. No six-year old battery is ever as good as it was when new, but that doesn't mean it won't continue to get the job done. Please keep me posted. Thanks!

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

I love my Sears P2 (re-labeled Odessey) battery. I've been beating the heck out of it with a high powered stereo system, with the truck turned off, a lot of the time, for 2 years now. Granted, I added a voltage gage in my dash, so I could see if my volts were trying to drop below 12. In fact, if it ever does drop below 12 volts, the gage will start flashing, but I can play several songs full tilt, and that's still never happened.

In fact, a few X's, I even screwed up, and left my headlights turned on too ! Doh ! And still never a problem starting.

Peace,
Fish