Neighbor gave me an Optima battery. He bought in new in ‘06 and used it twice while fishing. Sat on a concrete floor since. Will not take a charge now. Any suggestions before I pitch it? Don’t know much about them but I thought I’d ask. TIA
Get a regular battery, some jumper cables, and a standard charger. Hook the charger to the regular battery and jump the Opti with the cables and charge it on low, no more than 10A. May take all day but it will "soak" a full charge into it. If you put it on fast charge for any length of time it can burn out the cells of the Opti. Good luck, let us know... Oh, moving fwd, only the old rubber cased batteries from days of old would slowly discharge on concrete. One of those dont-do-its that has followed us for decades regardless of truth.
It's 16 years old. It's scrap. I like to keep a scrap battery around for when I buy the next project that doesn't have a battery in it, so I don't have to pay the $15 exchange fee they charge.
I replaced the Optima "6 pack" style battery in my 51' last year it was 22 years old! Only put a couple 100 miles a year on the car. Battery's mounted in the trunk. The guy at Interstate Battery said it probably lasted so long because it was away from the heat in the engine compartment
But you probably kept it charged all the time, eh? Lead acid batteries can't deal with sitting discharged for a long time
Use an OLD charger. One without all the fancy electronics and has a high amp 30+ amps output setting. Brought one back into life this way that refused to charge on a regular trickle charger.
Sitting on concrete is an old wives tale. As long as the battery is...clean and "dry", it doesn't matter what the battery sits on. But if it's got junk, grunge on it, or it's any...sort of wet, then the concrete, metal, will help kill a battery. Been there...done that !! Mike
I bought my Optima battery 13 years ago and when I finally got the car on the road, it was game over. Now I have a cheaper battery in it.
If you have a charger that will do an AGM style battery it might not turn on if the Optima is below a certain volt threshold. Usually you can trick it by running a couple of jumper wires to the charger leads on the dead battery from a good battery and it will start to charge.
I have an Optima Mfg charger and I've brought some of them back from the dead that were several years old. Kept the same Optima winch battery in my 5th wheel trailer alive for 13-14 years until I sold it. Doing the same with my Polaris Ranger snow plow, 10 years old and still going.
Some one on another battery thread said to bounce the battery on the ground hard a few times. Hard but don't break the case. He said crap builds up on the bottom and shorts out the plates in the cells. By bouncing it hard it may knock the crap down so it doesn't contact the plates anymore. Thus removing the short, then charge.
Would assume he thinks bouncing it will break up the sulphation of the battery. When a battery is charged it plates the cells in lead sulphate, when it’s discharged deeply it sheds the lead sulphate which settles to the bottom and eventually shorts the plates. I can assure you “bouncing” the battery will not help with that.
Do searches here and all over the web about "optima batteries decrease in quality", "who makes auto batteries" and "battery life decrease". Do searches for "how to charge a dead AGM battery". Tons of info out there. Also, you might want to search for "Enshittification" and how it applies to corporate life cycles.
I take it the the batteries should be connected in series, not parallel? I'm not sure so I'm trying to get my mind wrapped around it.
Like a jump start. In the video above that's to trick an AGM charger into kicking on. This works with a std charger that may otherwise burn out the fine wire in the spiral cells. The regular battery "absorbs" the full flow of amps, acts like a regulator. Does it work? Worked for me twice so...
What I’ve found having gone through several of the Red Tops is once below 6 volts most are toast. Won’t take a charge. Also, if you buy from an optima dealer and you tell them you charged it on a non optima charger they may void the warranty. Had that happen. Battery Tender seems to work ok trickle charging an Optima. Again, below 6 volts the battery may be toast.
Food for thought, and while not 100% unbiased, coming directly from the manufacturer, a good read at the very least: https://www.optimabatteries.com/experience/blog/optima-batteries-suck-the-truth I'm considering buying and using an Optima 75/25 Redtop battery, and they are priced about $100 above ($250 vs. $150) a typical traditional flooded style battery. I can understand the appeal of being able to mount it in multiple positions and the fact that it is 100% sealed, so up to each of us to decide if that extra $100 is worth spending.
In the pink, can you quote the article? It has a popup that requires accepting terms of service to read it. I will not comply with that.
If an Optima goes below 7 volts it’s junk, won’t take a charge. Parts stores that sell them are suppose to put them on a trickle charge while stored but most don’t. I purchased one recently and ended up going through two before I found on that lasted.
I like to watch youtubes about a certain British supercar which uses a fancy lithium battery that is light weight and powerful, but also has in-battery monitoring and a special charger. It also has modern electrics/software/features that tend to make maintenance and repair in any situation that is not 100% fully charged and fully operating properly a real booger, to put it mildly. For HAMB type applications, please make sure that any battery is easily accessible without power and can be charged easily, especially when they sit and if you are using a non lead acid style.
I wondered about that, and how one goes about getting the "freshest" battery, versus one which has been on the FLAPS shelf for the last 22 months. Maybe that's why they offer this: "If you'd rather not take a chance on an unknown internet retailer, you can always order factory-direct." It's actually cheaper to order direct with free shipping than from Advance Auto which has a core charge. They did post this charging tech video, but admittedly, they do tout their own charger in the video, but mention others are fine, too: "While OPTIMA chargers and maintainers can recover batteries that have been discharged down to 1.25 volts, we didn't build OPTIMA batteries in a specific way to force anyone to buy our chargers or maintainers. In fact, most chargers work just fine on our batteries and we even created a video, explaining how you can recover many deeply-discharged batteries with one of those older-style battery chargers. We also won't void your warranty like some other brands, if you don't use an "approved" charger, because we know using just about any charger is usually better than not using one at all."
But what about retail chains who sell our batteries? If our true warranty rates were through the roof, a competitor would come along and snap up our retail business in a heartbeat. The truth is, many of the "bad" batteries returned to us under warranty are just deeply-discharged and work fine, when properly-recharged. But what about the OPTIMA batteries factory? Contrary to Internet speculation, it's not in China, but it is in Monterrey, Mexico and they make the best batteries in the world there. We're not sure why that is even confusing for people, because we proudly promote that production facility and the batteries made there. OPTIMA is not just a battery brand, we are a battery manufacturer. We manufacture all of our own batteries in our own production facility and they are the only batteries produced there. We never re-brand, re-spec or otherwise re-label our batteries for any of our retail partners. Did you know some battery chargers on the market will not deliver current to batteries that have been discharged below a specific voltage level, typically around 10.5 volts? The thought process behind this cut-off is that any battery that has been discharged below 10.5 volts must have "lost a cell." That makes sense on the surface, as 2.1 volts per cell times 6 cells equals a fully-charged battery at ~12.6 volts. We also see a lot of OPTIMA batteries being sold online and elsewhere, that are described as "new," but are anything but new batteries. We have a specific blog where we talk about authorized OPTIMA retailers, but the unfortunate reality for a lot of people upset with their OPTIMA battery experience, is that they purchased a used OPTIMA battery with an unknown service history. Others may have received damaged batteries from unauthorized retailers, who may have shipped an OPTIMA battery in a box without proper protection (batteries are really heavy and need special packaging). Kinda the main take away bits.
https://www.caranddriver.com/shopping-advice/a26310824/best-car-battery/ This is kind of a simple overview, and touts specific brands (advertising?). With all the new types of batteries out there, I'd imagine all of them have pluses and negatives that will depend on use, discharge handling, weight and cost. Even within the HAMB, you have 6V and 12V, some of us use our vehicles daily, others once a month or less, some have small drains like modern cars with memory, and the wide range of storage conditions. EDIT, Thanks @JohnLewis! Appreciate the info!
I checked the Optima site and saw they have "Yellow-Top" and "Blue-Top" 6 volt batteries as well as the "Red-Tops" we old Ford guys love so well. They don't list dimensions, but they look to be all the same size. Anybody have any experience with them? If no one has, I'll understand because they are a lot more expensive.
Here's more info about the red vs. yellow. vs. blue, etc.: https://www.optimabatteries.com/support Specs for a 6V Redtop: https://www.optimabatteries.com/products/redtop-6v
I use most of time Optima, Keep your purchase receipt 5 year No hassle replacement from date of receipt, If No receipt five years from the manufacturers date on the battery when built/manufactured. In my sedan the battery is mounted on the side underneath the car, I had a few lasted over 15 plus years charged & non charged .. Blue a deep cycle Yellow is designed for a Heavy amperage draw and has a more ""reserve"" then the red top, I was experiencing @ idle a high amp draw with 100 amp alternator ,with electrical fan that pulled 45 amp , fuel pump , Msd Efi & headlights. With the Red Top it would drain battery down below 12.4 -12.2 V from 14,5v within five minutes, @ 1,000 rpms Yellow top takes 15-20 minutes I was experimenting.
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