I just finished a drive to a bus depot, to catch a ride to the airport. The drive was about 90 minutes.
after I checked in, I attempted to start the car and it was so dead it barely turned over more than two cranks.

Anywhoo, I was going to get another Optima red top group 35 but there seems to be a lot of negative feedback on the battery.

Does anyone have any good recommendations? The one in the car looks very new, but I don’t have proof of purchase since I bought the car with the battery already installed.

I’ll be getting a small lithium jump pack while on vacation, so I can get her going at least to drive back home Friday night.

 

i finally switched to a optima yellow top group 35 last week after my oem panasonic battery finally clunked out on me.

 

My red top has been solid for years and most of that time has been with the car just sitting in a shop or a garage.

 

I put a yellow top in the Ralliart and I swear it cranked much faster than it ever did on the stock Panasonic. I've had a half dozen Red Tops over the years and aside from a couple not taking a charge after going completely flat they've been good batteries. I think the QC at Optima has gone down in the more recent years which is why some people have no issues but others get some hate.

The Bosch 35-650BAGM is a direct fit replacement that you can get/order at PepBoys and has a vent tube like the stock Pany. Really any Group 35 AGM sealed battery should be fine in our cars.

 

Its funny that i just read somewhere about that bosch replacement. Ironically after the purchase of my yellow top. The optima of today is definitely not the optima of the past.

 

Of course this had to happen the day after I lent my radar detector to my buddies driving across the nation. I was curious to see what my resting voltage was at (the detector can display vehicle voltage).
I'm just glad this happened now, and not earlier when I was doing a bunch of reflashes on the ECU...

 

nobody prefers the Lithium batteries?

 

The Bosch AGM is ~$200 USD and a Lithium battery with similar amperage is $550-900 USD. So while Lithium is better density, weight, life, etc. you can buy roughly 3 replacement AGM batteries for the same money. So, unless you need to shave weight because racecar, it just doesn't make fiscal sense.

 

Not to mention a "heavy" battery in the position it is in the CZ4A is actually a good thing.

 

i have played around with lithium plenty and the bottom line is its not rugged enough to be very reliable. If your doing motorsport and its all a weight game then they are great. If you need something reliable in all weather conditions, or something that can handle some electrical abuse then lithium is probably not a great idea. With Lithium it all comes down to the Battery management system, and most i have seen are not up to the task of long term reliability in the automotive environment. If you look at the battery management in an electric car they are very complicated and involve active heating and cooling of the battery pack. Lithium has a much narrower operating temperature range than lead acid and if you operate the cells outside of that range it will do permanent damage to the cells.