optima yellow top batteries

I would think the Cold Cranking amps should match.

You need a group 34/78. It fits in the tray perfectly, eventhough the group 34 is for chrysler vehicles and the 78 is for GM vehicles. The 34/78 has more cca's than it's counterpart, the 75/86.

Yeah, the CCA don't need to match necessarily... i always thought the more the better.

true not match, but should be close.

ill give you this lil tid bit. i have 2 ,, i dont drive my car i9n the winter.. the dry cell batteries unless driven daily tend to drain themselves ,, especially in the cold.. , but other than that i love mine

cool. thanks for the helpful info guys:thumbsup:

the car definately needs a new battery to make it through this winter.

and also, since we're talking batteries i have another question. about the lil window thing on top of a battery, how can i tell what the color means? mine has been black for about a month or so.

you're talking about the 'eye' of the battery? if it's green that means its charged, if it's red then its discharged. If it's black, I guess that means it died out along with the battery.

Mike

Don't always trust the eye on the battery. Mine is black right now on my 4 year old stock battery, and Saturday it kept my system going with the car off for 6 hours while I worked on other projects.

HELP!
Thats funny

i wonder if ov3n put that on there. :biggrin:

Just a very IMPORTANT piece of info....

because dry cell batteries tend to discharge themselves when not in use you may find yourself with a dead battery... in which case you'll decide to charge it with a battery charger....

DO NOT EXCEED 2A trickle charge....

I fried a yellow top by charging it at 10A... i actually got away with a few charges but noticed the battery just wasn't what it used to be.... i then thought i just had a bad battery, so i went out and bought another dry cell battery.... i told the dealer my situation and he told me that it more than likely died because of the repeated 10A charges.... so again... DO NOT EXCEED A 2 AMP CHARGE on a dry cell battery

First of all, I don't know why my first post was deleted. You need a 34/78 group size.

Second of all, there is no such thing as too many CCA's.

Thirdly, the reason you fried your optimas is because you are using the wrong chargers. You need a charger which has a gel battery option. Optima is a gel cell, not a dry cell.

How do I know, I've been selling these batteries for 3 years.

that's the cell structure... however the optima batteries are DEEP CYCLES... and yes i had my charger on the deep cycle option...


this was info given to me by the man behind the counter who has been selling batteries for over 25 years.... i'm sure he knows what he's talking about

Originally posted by: Morph
I agree with PuckPuck, if your car sits for more than 3 days at a time, you will also need to invest in a good trickle charger ($60-$80) because the battery will drain and niether jumping nor the smaller cheap chargers, will ever be able to fully charge the battery.

After a lot of frustration and trial and error, I bought a Schumacher 10/2 Amp Fully Automatic battery charger from AutoZone which has a maintenance free deep cycle setting that is perfect for the yellow-top. Like PuckPuck said, just remember to use the 2 Amp setting. Mine looks exactly like the one in the attached pic, except mine says 10/2 AMP and does not say 12/24 volt.

Click to expand...

3 days??? So if when we have weather like we have had the last week and I take the truck and park the car it's not going to start when I decide to use it again?? or what about vacation? Am I going to have to carry a spare battery with me so I can start the car at the park and ride? That sucks. Might as well get a marine battery then. my parents leave there boat for weeks at a time and it allways fires right up.

Deep cycle merely means that the battery can be fully discharged and recharged and the battery is as good as new. A normal maint free battery can do this about 2 cycles. A deep cycle battery can do this approx 100 times. Optima batteries can do this over 350 times. Gel batteries have an agent in the electrolyte to turn the electrolyte to a gel formula. The plates in a optima or any other spiral cell battery give over 200% more surface area-that's why people kill them on chargers. They charge too fast. Most trickle chargers charge batteries at a rate of 1.5 to 2 amps. Gel chargers charge at 1 amp. Puck, yes, the optima IS a deep cycle. But on top of having some characteristics of a deep cycle, it differs because of it's electrolyte and cell design.

Damn, wish i had known about these batteries having a short shelf life when not in use. Oh well. Thanks for the tip on recharging it, though. I'll definately keep that in mind.

I've left my vehicle off for almost two weeks with my Optima, and it started immediately...