Originally Posted by
CraigE
The Blue top are technically a marine version of the yellow top with posts and threaded. I used to have one, absolutely the worst Deep Cycle Battery I have had, would never have another one or any Optima for that matter. Overpriced POS..
Cheers
Craig
I would never buy one as a deep cycle. For several of my 4WDs/AWD though the Optima have been good and lasted for many years. My latest deep cycle purchase was a twin pack (ie two batteries) of Fullriver 120 AH batteries. Those were a recommended option from several similar brand caravans to mine, from some knowledgeable people. Not at all cheap though but I thought them worth the try.
If I was buying for my D4, I'd now consider one other brand, which would cost around the price of a Optima Yellow top. But for my Prado, which gets rougher treatment, and it goes flat quite a lot (its not kept much at my home) I'd still feel the Optima a good replacement. But its 11 year old Optima is still going, but I suspect it is time to replace it as my son uses the Prado and I am starting to feel nervous with a old battery running a fridge in the back and bushfires seem to be more of an issue than they used to be. My son has said he'll get a dual battery setup but still hasn't done so. If he did then no need to replace the Optima until it dies, and after 11 years, surely it's not got that long to go. My son said my wife's Lexus RX350's battery was dead (my wife and I went away for a month). I came back and the 8 year old Optima was flat. A quality charger could not revive it. But I have a charger that does revive low batteries (another way is to link a good battery to a dead battery and that starts to equalise the charge, and then a charger will be able to take over and charge a low battery). Anyhow I charged it and its been fine.
It does seem though that some here have bought them and had a bad run. Having a manufacturing background, I find it tough to accept that the Optima is worse made that the ones I have bought. All mine are Mexico made. But there may be other issues effecting the batteries such as distributors etc. Who knows. There is much more choice though than there was 11 years ago. The advantage of the Optima for me was ruggedness, fast recharge, run a fridge in the back, able to handle engine bay temperatures. The cylindrical wound design has a big disadvantage though, which is less capacity for its volume. I think I have found an alternative, but since I've not used them, I could not recommend them here.
Emotionally I'd like to buy UltraAGM or UltraVLSA or whatever they are called. They are now being made by a couple of companies. They have capacitors included in the battery. And have been be to some extent developed by the CSIRO.
I recall that the CSIRO sold their hydrogen storage invention where a metal alloy could hold large quantities of hydrogen. The company was then sold to mostly various major car makers - I can recall Mitsubishi and Mercedes, amongst several others. The CSIRO sold the tech for $Au10,000. I knew of that years before the technology was floated into those huge corporations. A good example of Australian capacity for Research, and our shortcomings in development.
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