Hello, I noticed your conversation regarding our batteries and wanted to offer some assistance. Tryfan, if your vehicle is relatively-stock an appropriately-sized RedTop will work just fine. If you are going to add a winch or any other significant electrical accessory, I would strongly recommend a YellowTop. Is your current battery original to the vehicle? iwannadie, all of our batteries are manufactured in our own facility in Monterrey and they are the only batteries made there. We never re-brand or re-spec our batteries for any of our retail partners and the quality of our batteries has never been better.
Tom, I'm sorry to hear about the problem you had with your battery. Even though you've replaced it already, I would be interested in hearing the circumstances surrounding your issue. Our three-year, free replacement warranty on consumer batteries is far from being the shortest in the industry. You can read our entire warranty
here. 962drrhino offers excellent advice about upgrading wiring, especially grounds, as one-wire alternators are very sensitive to good, quality grounds. His story about buying a “dead” RedTop is unfortunately, not unique. My wife's truck starts every morning with a “dead” YellowTop, which was returned under warranty and only deeply-discharged. That battery has also worked flawlessly, since being properly-recharged.
tbburg is correct that AGM batteries do offer protection from spilled acid in rollover events, but our batteries are also up to 15 times more resistant to vibration, than their flooded counterparts and can last up to twice as long. When any battery is deeply-discharged below a specific voltage threshold (usually around 10.5 volts), many standard battery chargers will not recognize or charge the battery. This is a charger-specific issue and not unique to Optima. In fact, it has become problematic enough for other manufacturers, that they will void the warranty on their batteries, if they are found to be discharged below a specific voltage level. We didn't do that, but we did create this
YouTube video, which explains how to recharge deeply-discharged batteries. This technique was also mentioned in
the Hot Rod article offroadordnance referenced.
If anyone has any questions about our batteries, I'll do my best to answer them.
Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.facebook.com/optimabatteries