Great battery

[slippery]

I have had great success with Caterpiller batteries been using them since 1994, no prblems starting either my tdi200 defender or 300tdi discovery, 100% recomend, if buying mention for car use only, if they find out its for fwd they only 2 year pro rata, well worth looking into.

[theborderdog]

Slippery,
I second that motion, I run a daul battery set up in my Disco and they are both CAT batteries..............no dramas yet. I've also run them for a least the last 6 or 7 years in other cars that I've had (HX holden ute and commodore) I'm just waiting for the cheap arse battery in the other half's Subaru to s**t itself so I can convert that to a CAT set up as well.

[Young Angus]

Are they all that fancy spiral designed deep cycle cores etc. etc. or are they just a really good durable standard battery? I'm looking at a new battery at the moment but was going to go for an Optima...but I'm interested if the CAT ones are really great also. How are they priced?

[slippery]

These batteries are designed to be bounced around all day, sealed no maintainence except for grease around terminals. been using the since 1994.

Cost includes gst $157.00
IMPORTANT, What ever you do never say it is going into a 4wd because they will cut the pro rata back, say it is going into a car.
First 2 years free replacement, then a further 12 months pro rata.

[Traco]

My red top Optima lasted 19 months, then wouldn't hold charge. Well within the 3 year warranty period. Took it back to where I bought it and was told Optima don't make red tops anymore. Really?

So I've got a yellow top as a replacement which I just hope lasts a lot longer. Seems Optima batteries aint what they used to be (except for their price).

Next time I think I'll get a decent Exide or Century.

BTW speaking of weighty batteries the Optima weighs 20 kg, the Exide I had before that for 4 years only 12 kg.

[jskerm]

The best use for an optima battery is a boat anchor, or a handy way to start a fire maybe. I bought a brand new wrangler in 09 and it was fitted with a yellow top. The first one melted down on the way home from the dealer, coating the entire engine bay with bubbling acid and leaving me on the side of the road in the middle of no-where, 150 km on the clock. The second one lasted about 300 km before getting so hot it melted the sides out and again, dropped acid everywhere. After that i avoided the useless warranty and put a Cat battery in (i used to work for Cat so wasn't hard to come by) and it never missed a beat. In fact it was about the only thing on the car working when I sold the H.O.S earlier this year, and went back to good old Landy's. Lesson learned......

[LowRanger]

My red top Optima lasted 19 months, then wouldn't hold charge. Well within the 3 year warranty period. Took it back to where I bought it and was told Optima don't make red tops anymore. Really?

So I've got a yellow top as a replacement which I just hope lasts a lot longer. Seems Optima batteries aint what they used to be (except for their price).

Next time I think I'll get a decent Exide or Century.

BTW speaking of weighty batteries the Optima weighs 20 kg, the Exide I had before that for 4 years only 12 kg.

I think the place you went to just never had any stock of Red Top Optimas.I was in the battery shop last week,and they have the whole range of Red Tops.Not that I bought an Optima,I ended up with a Deka AGM battery.Higher CCA and higher A/h rating than the equivalent Yellow Top Optima and cheaper.

Wayne

[LowRanger]

The best use for an optima battery is a boat anchor, or a handy way to start a fire maybe. I bought a brand new wrangler in 09 and it was fitted with a yellow top. The first one melted down on the way home from the dealer, coating the entire engine bay with bubbling acid and leaving me on the side of the road in the middle of no-where, 150 km on the clock. The second one lasted about 300 km before getting so hot it melted the sides out and again, dropped acid everywhere. After that i avoided the useless warranty and put a Cat battery in (i used to work for Cat so wasn't hard to come by) and it never missed a beat. In fact it was about the only thing on the car working when I sold the H.O.S earlier this year, and went back to good old Landy's. Lesson learned......

Sounds like you had a charging fault with the Jeep rather than 2 Faulty batteries in 300km.Spiral wound batteries are not very forgiving of overcharging.

Wayne

[jskerm]

You're probably right wayne. The dealer told me on both occasions they'd checked the charge and it was ok, but then, they also told me jeeps were a lot more reliable than land rovers so shows what they knew... All i know is that if there was a problem there the optima couldnt hack it while the Cat took it in its stride. The only other good battery i can think of is whatever brand they put in defenders from factory in the 90's. We had a couple on the farm and got about 10 years out of both of them! They weren't even that stuffed when they were replaced, just got a bit slow. Anyone know what brand they are?

[jskerm]

I mean the 1990's not 90" defenders....

[Casper]

I don't know about Cat batteries but having dealt with quite a lot of their products Im not surprised.

I've had Delcor Calcium batteries in my 300Tdi Disco for 4 years and they were in my mates truck for 5 years before that and they are still going strong after about 80,000 kms of all sorts of battering in my Disco and god knows what they put up with in the truck.

We only changed them in the truck because we had an electrical problem which drained them and being a 24v set up we couldn't get it to jump start and he needed to move it, his call, chuck 2 new batteries in.

I chucked them on the charger and put them in Casper where they have been ever since.

My alternator is set up to charge at 14.5 volts though (as most euro cars normally are) which works well for Calcium batteries so if doing the same keep that in mind as it may have some bearing on their life.

Cheers Casper

[Young Angus]

Haha I went to JB HiFi today to buy a car stereo for my wife's car and next to all the "fully sick" head units and sub woofers they had a stack of Optima yellow top batteries...they must flog them to car audio nuts so they can run their ute trays full of speakers for longer.

I really don't understand that whole scene :bangin: