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Youve had red tops fail on you? Really?

Must be the retarded cold or something.

I've had 3 of them since 1999, and I leave my car parked for extended amounts of time, pretty damn often.

So far I haven't had a single problem with them.

The only reason I swapped my last one out, was my car was being shipped from germany to the US and i wanted to make sure they didn't have to jump it and risk screwing something up. The battery was over 4 years old, and I wasn't sure it would make it 1.5 to 2 months.

As for charging when I'm gone. Unless I'm going to be gone for more than a month I don't worry about it. So far she has started every time. Even in the winter with a battery pushing 4 years old.

Actually... My original red top, from 1999 was still in use in 2008. I had it in My s10 till I deployed in 2003. I didn't put in on a charger, and the girl that had my keys couldn't figure out my remote to start my truck.

It was TOTALLY dead when I got back. I figured after 4 years of use, and 4 months with my alarm drawing current with no charge, it was done for. So I bought another one and gave it to my dad to see if he could get it to work. He put it on a charger, got the volts back up, and put it in an old ford tractor.

As of 2008 (when he sold that tractor) it was still running strong.

Hi Tim, I understand that you realize a YellowTop is strongly recommended for car audio applications, but the RedTop deal was too good to pass up. If you are running more than one battery in parallel, the batteries should be the same age, type and size. If they are not, they need to be isolated from each other. You might want to consider using your other battery as an auxiliary battery and using the RedTop as your starting battery. If you have any other battery-related questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.
Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
http://www.facebook.com/optimabatteries

OptimaJim wrote:Hi Tim, I understand that you realize a YellowTop is strongly recommended for car audio applications, but the RedTop deal was too good to pass up. If you are running more than one battery in parallel, the batteries should be the same age, type and size. If they are not, they need to be isolated from each other. You might want to consider using your other battery as an auxiliary battery and using the RedTop as your starting battery. If you have any other battery-related questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.
Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
http://www.facebook.com/optimabatteries

Using the other battery as an auxiliary would only be recommended if its a sealed battery and not something that would vent fume's into the cabin.

Bwcad1 wrote:Using the other battery as an auxiliary would only be recommended if its a sealed battery and not something that would vent fume's into the cabin.

Thats kinda what I was thinking bill, the battery in the front is not a sealed battery. And therefore I dont want to run it in the cabin cause of my little boy(or myself to a much lesser degree), that s the reason I wanted to run the red top in the cabin.

Tim

Tim wrote:Thats kinda what I was thinking bill, the battery in the front is not a sealed battery. And therefore I dont want to run it in the cabin cause of my little boy(or myself to a much lesser degree), that s the reason I wanted to run the red top in the cabin.
Tim

You should be fine. Manufactures recommend you don't run different types because over time it could decrease the life of the batteries. I however do this all the time with 0 ill effects.

Tim wrote:Thats kinda what I was thinking bill, the battery in the front is not a sealed battery. And therefore I dont want to run it in the cabin cause of my little boy(or myself to a much lesser degree), that s the reason I wanted to run the red top in the cabin.
Tim

Tim, although our batteries are sealed, it is important that any lead-acid battery has proper ventilation. ALL lead-acid batteries can vent gas. Traditional wet batteries do this immediately when recharged, since they are not sealed. Sealed lead-acid batteries like Optimas and all other “dry cell” AGM batteries have safety release valves that should only vent if they are seriously overcharged.

Under normal operating conditions, an AGM battery will not vent gas. Since alternators or chargers can fail, the safest and correct mounting method for trunks and passenger compartments is to make sure that any possible gas venting will escape to the outside of the vehicle. All vehicles with original equipment battery locations in trunks or passenger compartments will have a vent provision that should be used. Since it sounds like your battery would be custom-mounted in the passenger compartment, we recommend venting the battery to the outside of your vehicle as well. Optima group 27, 51, 78, 34C, and 31 batteries all have ports for connecting a vent hose.

Although people do it anyway, we would never recommend installing an unvented battery in any enclosed space, because there’s a legitimate, albeit unlikely, safety risk involved.

For example, IF there is a voltage regulator failure, and IF the battery is severely overcharged, and IF this goes unnoticed, and IF the battery vents because the internal pressure exceeds the release pressure of the vents, the gasses are both flammable and toxic. This may sound like a lot of “ifs,” but attorneys and engineers get paid to plan for every worst-case scenario. If you have any other battery-related questions, I’ll do my best to answer them.

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

JeremyC wrote:Youve had red tops fail on you? Really?
Must be the retarded cold or something.
.

yep 2 failed 1 summer about 3 weeks apart and another second hand one died in the winter. im not sure what caused the failure in the summer maybe the car but other batteries worked fine. the one that failed in the winter was just old and stopped holding a charge after a couple months.

colemanyoungerinalaska wrote:yep 2 failed 1 summer about 3 weeks apart and another second hand one died in the winter. im not sure what caused the failure in the summer maybe the car but other batteries worked fine. the one that failed in the winter was just old and stopped holding a charge after a couple months.

In all the testing and years I've been in spl i have never touched optima batteries. There are just better batteries for less money. Deka/Enersys/Orbitals. list goes on and on. Most of the batteries we have actually done head to head tests on or i have read tests on from other competitors are typically better than the optima's in our application.

Bwcad1 wrote:In all the testing and years I've been in spl i have never touched optima batteries. There are just better batteries for less money. Deka/Enersys/Orbitals. list goes on and on. Most of the batteries we have actually done head to head tests on or i have read tests on from other competitors are typically better than the optima's in our application.

didnt u sell me an optima battery????

Lol holy crap i forgot all about that one. We never used it in a car other than to made sure it worked.

Correction i have touched a Blue Top funny part is it didnt survive shipping to JGS07 and ive shipped plenty of batteries.