Urgent help. Traxide system failure.

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Originally Posted by jon3950

Trouble is find a replacement that will fit in the space I have. The height restrictions make it difficult in the D4 but its even worse in the Defender.

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I'm going to try this battery (SSB HVT-50D) next, which was recently suggested by Tombie.
60aH and all dimensions same or less than D34.
SSB DryCell HVT-50D AGM VRLA 12V 60Ah 580 CCA - Cyclic Use

This SSB one only came to my attention after I replaced the D34 like-for-like after around 4 years.
It didn't fail but was not holding a charge very well and I didn't want to rely on it for a big trip.
Anyway, hopefully I get a few useful years but it seems about 2 is all I can expect from Optima.

Cheers,
Scott

Thanks for the link. I’d seen Mike’s comments on these and had been thinking about it. At that price delivered it might be worth a try. Might even do it before the trip. Will you still be running the Optima?

Cheers,
Jon

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Originally Posted by jon3950

Will you still be running the Optima?

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Yep because it's virtually brand new (~6 weeks) but I will be keeping an eye on it every day.

Does it only affect yellow tops?

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Originally Posted by jon3950

Yeah, I’m losing faith in them. I’ve had a good run from them in the past, but this one doesn’t seem to be holding a charge like it should.

Trouble is find a replacement that will fit in the space I have. The height restrictions make it difficult in the D4 but its even worse in the Defender.

Cheers,
Jon

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What about excide orbitals? I got 11 years out of mine. Have had optimas for about 5 years now, to me i don't think they are as good a battery.

Well, in a moment of weakness last night (damn you, Clonakilla Hilltops Shiraz) I bought the SSB. It should turn up tomorrow and I’ll fit it on the weekend.

My problem now is I’m trying very hard not to use the Defender as a daily driver (putting too many miles on it) so it doesn’t get charged daily. I’ve been finding the Optima was dropping it’s charge during the week and dragging the main battery down with it.

Prior to this though when touring and just running the fridge, if we didn’t run the car for a day it would drop below the cutout voltage.

We’ve got a reasonably long trip coming up in a few weeks, so we’ll see how it goes.

Cheers,
Jon

Supercharge batteries seem pretty good.

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Originally Posted by incisor

Does it only affect yellow tops?

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Unknown. The yellow one is very common amongst the D3/D4 crowd so failures/issues are becoming evident.

Scott

On ya Tim!

Hi guys

I see there's been a flurry of conversations about my problem. I've only just made it back into civilisation today so I'll be doing more to diagnose problems soon. What I can say at the moment is that Tim has been fantastic in his response to my dilemma and kept me on the road for the rest of my trip. At the moment I don't know if the Optima yellow top failed so that is still to be confirmed.

Stay tuned.

Rod.