Hot Rods Optima batteries - Good, Bad?

I have sold Interstate batteries at work for a year... I have only processed 2 or 3 warranties on them in that time and I like working with them as a company. I feel like they are pretty damn good batteries. Having said that, I haven't had to buy one yet. My (OT) daily has an ancient Duralast battery that the previous owner bought in 2012 and it is still ticking. It will be replaced with a greentop when it finally goes.

 

I've been buying Optima red tops for over 25 years, almost exclusively. When they were made in the US, they lasted between 8 and 11 years for me in everything from daily drivers to 4 times a year show cars, didn't matter.

They were great. Were. Now they are made in Mexico (not the problem) out of cheaper stuff (the problem) and I just had to replace two of them in as many months, one being 6 years old, and the other being 3 1/2. They were about $150 around 5 years ago, now they are over $300, and don't even give you twice the life of a cheapo flooded cell. Optima won't do anything about the 3.5 year old, because now they only give you an outrageous 3 year replacement warranty, no pro rata. So at this point, I am done with these expensive crap pile batteries.

Years back, the Optima company apologist used to come on here any time someone reported a bum battery with every excuse why it was our fault, and not theirs. He doesn't bother anymore, no big mystery why. Do yourself a favor and buy another brand.

 

I used an optima in my off topic hot rod. Got about 6 years from it. Could not get it warrantied by anyone, including optima.
I now use low buck farm store batteries, get 8 to 10 years use from them.
I'm happy.
In fact this spring I replaced the 10 year old, still working farm store battery & rear tires on my '40 because they ARE old.

 

If you can't see it then run what you want but like marks if it's out in the open then spending an afternoon with some super glue and decals is an afternoon well spent.

2 yrs ago I finally replaced the factory battery in my 2005 ram, yep factory, so 15 yrs is as good as an optima.

I can't justify their prices, per yr usage probably works out to any other average battery. I have used Walmart batteries in everything I've owed in the last 15 to 20 yrs and never had a problem.

...

 

The first Optma battery in my RPU went 17 years. The current one has been in the car for 8 years. During the pandemic the car sat for months at a time. The car still starts in about 6 revolutions. To answer the OP's question, I think Optima batteries are great.

 

Deka Intimidator battery, made in the USA, I switched to these when the Optima became troublesome for most.

 

if you have to use a special charger to avoid damaging the battery what happens when you charge it with a fifty year old alternator o a sixty year old generator

 

I had many deep cycle Optimas and they lasted a long time. About 15 years ago, their web site said made in USA. I bought 6 deep cycles. Now they are made in Mexico. One lasted 6 months. A second failed at 10 months. I called and asked if some of the batteries were still made here. Their reply was all of their batteries were made in a state of the art facility in Juarez, Mexico. I told them I would not be buying any more. Switched to NAPA and no more issues.
Bob

 

The first red top I bought lasted from 2006 until I sold the car in 2021, and as far as I know its still in there. I have friends who replace their yellow tops every 2 years under warranty.
I've also had bad luck with Interstate's gel cell, and Napa's gel cells in the last few years.

 

Similar experiences here with Optimas. Older "USA" ones were great. Newer "not-USA" ones were not. Switched to using whatever brand was private labelling for NAPA.

Of course, this was years ago and I never went back to Optima so maybe they're brought their "not-USA" batteries back up to their prior quality.

 

My Optima, was put there by the PO. But it sits under the drivers feet, so I can't see that it's much too long for the battery tray it sits in.

 

it seems duralast batteries live forever, my o/t daily had a battery from 2009 that finally quit in 2022 when the car sat for a few months with the axle blown apart.

 

I get this.

Most of the HAMB's focus era coincides with roughly the first half of what I've called the Contested Age of the automobile, a 55-year period of time during which there were concerted efforts to pull the paradigms dominating automotive technology in a specific direction, but it was not yet a done deal. There was resistance; other paradigms were still possible. This is no longer the case. We're interested in the first half because the age was for our purposes overall a losing battle. We were closer to what we want in 1934-65 than in 1966-89.

But it places us in a tension between two approaches. We could go for a historical snapshot, freeze a specific moment in time, in which case the actual stuff which was around at that moment is crucial. Yet because we're freezing a moment we're excluding what happened before and after: we're losing the motion, the process.

Alternatively we could go for a celebration of the engineering design ethos about which the entire conflict was. The problem is that the battle lines weren't clear. There is going to be a mix of stuff in our snapshot, some of which works for our ethos and some of which works against — and it isn't straightforward which is which.

Radial tyres and disc brakes aren't a threat to the "traditional" engineering design ethos the way, say, EFI is, but they are relatively unlikely to show up in our snapshot. Sealed-beam headlights and even pressed-steel bodies are a considerable threat, but they are almost certain to be present. The "traditional" ethos is about stuff which breaks down to simple parts, which can be taken apart, serviced, fixed, modified, and replicated with relative ease. It's about durable, restorable stuff that will last as long as you keep fixing it. It is about an unbroken continuum between processes of manufacture and processes of repair and service, against a concerted agenda to impose a very strict differentiation between them. It is about pregnability by elementary science and a vernier caliper, without recourse to anyone's code. And in practical, historical effect it was about a healthy distrust of electricity. It is "traditional" to do things by all kinds of different means — by cables, linkages, vacuum, hydraulics, etc. — and by electricity only as a very last resort.

Now, trust me to overthink this stuff, and go off on a tangent which involves doing it in the most difficult possible way. I'm sorry; I can't help myself. I had to go wondering what a starting battery which best reflects an idealized "traditional" engineering design ethos (short of dispensing with it entirely) might be. And what it most probably might be is some kind of nickel-iron Edison-cell battery. I won't go into the practicalities. It's something to investigate.

The point I want to make is that though this mad-scientist stuff, supposing you can pull it off, isn't going to be historically accurate in any strict sense, it might end up looking the part almost by accident. What might a mad scientist have done in 1959?

 

Here's a solution. Modern battery technology in a vintage looking skin.

https://turbostart.com/product-category/batteries/collector-series/

 

The CA / CCA and reserve capacities align with standard wet batteries of the same BCI, so no "smaller" than what you'd get with a common off-the-shelf battery. This, of course, is assuming they're being truthful about their specifications.

Perhaps their build quality is not up to snuff. Given the warranty is 1 year, did you get a replacement?

 

Optima is a good battery just butt ugly in a classic car. There are options. I built this out of scrap steel. A simple box sized to match the battery tray in my 442 (I moved the battery to the trunk years ago leaving the empty tray under the hood).

Fake battery topper, and decals like @Jeff Norwell posted above. I even put post adapters on top as this is not a battery any longer but more of a stash can. I could just as easily added bulkhead posts and connected it to a battery inside.
I added a lip to the bottom to pick up the factory GM hold down.

Inside it is carpeted and plenty of room for a battery or in my case motor oil, funnel, flask, rags, flask.

Looks right at home.