Any Optima users out there? My Optima battery doesn't seem

5 years isn't bad at all. There is no straight answer, you can smoke a battery in months if it's dropping into the single digits or your charging regulation is bad, or it could last 10 years if you are lucky and in the perfect conditions.

thats a fancy battery
mate

optimas are only good when you need an AGM for reasons. like you REALLY dont want corrosion that can happen with a flooded battery.
AGM has its place in classics and so on.
are they as good as say a braille or whatever? fuck no

>>16814434
Actually, I think it's possible that my Optima battery has been depleted faster because my HV Hybrid batteries are near dead. So the 12v Optima battery has had to step in.

My Prius is 13 years old and still has the original HV batteries. I've been driving recently, and the hybrid electric equipment turns off, so I only have the engine, so basically, no power steer, no power brakes, no air conditioning, no hybrid propullsion. All I have is a small amount of horse power when I step on the gas and I have to steer by hand and push the brake pedal hard to stop.

>>16814449
>single digits

The fuck are you talking about, bro.

Batteries last LONGER in cold conditions, and LESS LONGER in hot conditions.

>>16814455
>braille
Never heard of these Braille batteries. Is that supposedly the best?

>>16814458
>prius
moar liek HIV batteries, amirite

>>16814434
I have an optima. I got it from amazon for only 20 bucks over a normal battery. It was already a year old from the date sticker and now 1.5 years later it's still fine.

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>>16814434
Wow, okay, no, so I bought this battery less than 4 years ago. What the fuck, man.

3 years, 5 months.

>>16814461
I was talking about single digit voltage, not temp

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>>16814434
I just hooked up the charger. Keep getting trouble code.

>>16814469
There are only 3 car battery manufacturers. Brailles are East Penn batteries with a different sticker on them sold for 3x the price. If you want a Braille just buy the Deka stickered battery of the same specs. Optimas are made by Johnson Controls who make a shitton of other brands. If you ever hear anyone say "Yeah man always get Interstate, and never buy that Die Hard crap" chances are they may be talking about two identical batteries with different stickers on them. Just do your research and you'll find which of the 3 manufacturers makes a battery and you'll be able to find a generic, internally identical version for a fraction of the cost

>>16814539
Is there a generic identical version of Optima?

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>>16814492
I looked it up on YouTube to see some reviews.

This one makes me feel better.

>>16814565
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kLWZAwa8Qg

Yeah, looks like this guy had the exact same problem. Luckily he returned it within 3 years.

Damn shame too. My car has been sitting in the garage for the last 6 months.

>>16814549
I'm pretty sure that both the Sears and Wal Mart AGMs are JC made which would make them the same as the Optima (they obviously don't have the fancy 6 pack case). All the info is available here, but it's convoluted
http://jgdarden.com/batteryfaq/batbrand.htm
About half way down the page is a list of all the Johnson Controls sub brands

>>16814565
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmAOuhBb4Mk

Started watching this vid of top 10 car batteries.

Number 10 was Optima. So that's a bad sign. Means it's the worst out of all 10 batteries named in that review. I didn't even know that many car batteries existed.

>>16814600
Pretty much every car made after 1994 is going to have a small parasitic draw, you should either disconnect the battery or put it on a tender if it's not going to move for 6 months

>>16814614
So you're saying that because I had the battery hooked up to a car that has shit running even in minimal amounts for months, the battery died to the point where it couldn't hold a charge anymore?

>>16814604
This page is fucking huge. Wtf am I looking for.

>>16814610
You aren't going to get any good info from videos like that, it's someone who has never touched the batteries comparing spec sheets provided by the manufacturer, it means nothing.
> I didn't even know that many car batteries existed.
Lots of different stickers exist, that doesn't mean there are that many different battery architectures, just like there are thousands of different cordless drill, flashlight, RC car, etc. batteries but they are all build from 18650 cells from a handful of manufacturers

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>>16814610
Says their number 1 battery is the Optima Red Top series. Which is slightly cheaper than the yellow top series. Wtf.

>>16814628
AGM batteries don't like to be drained fully, but that wasn't the only reason, that combined with age killed the battery. There is no clear answer, it's not like if the battery drops to 10 volts 9 times it will spontaneously die on the 10th time, or if it goes to 1 volt once it will reduce the life by x%, there are too many variables, that's why there's no answer to "how long should a battery last." How long do brake pads last? Depends how you use them.

>>16814634
It will tell you who makes pretty much every 12v car battery on the market, and yes it's a mess

>>16814661
>AGM batteries don't like to be drained fully

This yellow top Optima battery is specifically called a deep cycle battery. Meaning you can cycle it all the way to empty and recharge it in a short space of time.

>>16814492
the tabs kind of give away that you have no gf

>>16814676
>all the way to empty
Not a chance the manufacturer recommends that, maybe to 50% charge but not 5% as one would have if they left a modern car sitting for 6 months).

I ain't no battery expert or nothin but a lot of batteries that people condem are actually just fine, they just need a proper charge.
And no, jumping your car and driving it for 50 miles isn't a proper charge.

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OP here.

I finally got it to charge by connecting another battery in parallel with the charger and battery.

>>16816236
That's funny. right after I did this, I found this video that does the exact same thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mp9JPLgdr1k

>>16816241
>>16816236
Although, I think I might have done this before, and the charger said it was fully charged at one point. But after a few days of not using the car, the battery was once again completely dead.

>>16814657
Red top is for stereos, it's good because it can handle a really high current draw quickly.

>>16816276
Wtf are you talking about. Yellow top is for stereos. Red top is just for starting.

https://www.optimabatteries.com/en-us/support/battery-basics/redtop-vs-yellowtop-vs-bluetop-battery

Watch the video at the bottom of the page.

>Red tops are for vehicles with shallow power draw.

Also, because Yellow tops are cheaper on Amazon than Red tops, no one actually buys red tops.

>>16816236
I wouldn't trust that battery tho

5 years aint all too bad, quite normal for a standard battery that isn't regularly maintained. To make them last longer I recommend dual-battery setups, checking/filling water every month if possible, charging it weekly and never running it empty

Previous owner of my Toyota maintained its batteries really well, resulting in both of those batteries being able to singel-handedly start up the truck in -15c/5f at the ripe old age of 13

Still, they did only hold a portion of their previous power and capacity so I wouldn't depend on them

>>16816336
I was wrong, it wasn't 5. It's 3.5 years.

I get what you're saying about not trusting it though... I have that feeling with it now too, since I left it in the garage unused for 4 or 5 days unused and the battery was completely dead again.

I'll put my volt meter to it after 3 days of charging and see what it's at.

>>16816336
Never knew you could put water in batteries. Is that correct thing to do?

AGM batteries probably will never need that.

>>16816236
Once it's got some voltage back in it (10.5v+), put it on a trickle charger to bring it back up, drain it back down to around 11v and trickle it back up again., see if it comes good.

Modern lead acid batteries are lucky to have a 3 year warranty anyway

>>16816341
Works for non-sealed lead acid batteries, you could top the acid up with water and give them a gentle charge and get a few more years life out of them.

Modern ones are disposable 3 year trash, though, especially in modern cars that do 1,000 things after you've turned the engine off and constantly draw power to detect a key fob within range.

>>16816349
Man, this almost makes me want to connect my car battery to the 12v charger every time I pull into the garage.

>>16816276
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Foiq8L1hA

>Red Top for Stereos
>1 year old battery
>Holding 0 charge.

>>16816362
Don't need to go that far, if you haven't started it for a week or longer put a charger on it for 15 minutes first so you're not pulling the voltage down too far, and don't do 5 minute drives. It's bad for every part of your car, not just the battery.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VD_LmHQ9XgI

This guy.

Same problem.

Red Top Optima discharging 25% by just being left alone with nothing hooked up to it.

And he used the same strategy as me to recharge it with connecting it to another 12 volt battery.

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A9Foiq8L1hA

>Made in Mexico

>>16816341
Cells (the compartments of the battery that hold acid and the lead plates) that run dry are ruined, lowering your capacity and output.

Modern acid batteries are sadly nearly always maintenance free and sealed, meaning that what runs dry remains dry. The best thing to refill with is water mixed with 30-50% sulphuric acid as that is what it uses. Typically you'll top them off with just plain battery water (de-ionized water), which does work fine although it dilutes the water/acid mix

And yeah, AGM doesnt need that. In an AGM the acid is absorbed into very fibe glass mats in the battery, making them "solid", spill proof and also a lot tougher when it comes to being run empty & charged again

>>16816390
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HGoPDQwjzq4

>>16816449
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Glk1Y8MiyaI

Looks like I should have bought an Optima Blue Top Battery.

>Can be not used for a year and still work.

>>16816461
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdGqm8wIW1A

FUUUUUUUUUUUUU

>All passenger vehicle Optima Yellow top or Red top batteries are covered by a 36 month free replacement warranty.

>I'm at 41 months and the car was sitting in the driveway for the past half year.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

>>16816524
Just charge it back up broski, hit it with a fuckton of amps if you need to get it back up above 9v, otherwise trickle charge it up to 12.5v, then get a nice constant load on it (a light) and drop it back down to 11v, now trickle charge it back up to 13.2v and let it sit and see if it's discharging with no load on it, if it isn't then it's all good senpai.
If it is, shit's fucked

>>16816538
Gonna need to reread that a few times for me to make sense.

>>16816538
Where did you get this method from?

>>16816542
Trial and error, i've done that a bunch of times and brought a decent amount of batteries back to at least a little bit of life, although with lower voltages for lead acids (the 13.2 figure is from optimas website)

>>16816541
Obtain adjustable battery charger and multimeter
Measure battery voltage
If <9v, put the charger to the max and hit that motherfucker until it's up above 10.5v, go next step
If >9v, go next step
Charge at .5A until 12.3-12.5v
Wait 5m
Connect it to something to drain, a 12v light will work
Wait until it's 11v
Remove load, wait 5m
Put back on .5A
Wait until 13.2v
Remove from charger, wait 5m
With multimeter, watch to see if it drains with no load attached (i just check voltage every 15m for a couple hours)

If it doesn't drain, the battery is fine and can be used again
If it does drain, the battery's dead

>>16816550
Will do.

>>16816550
Gonna use another battery to parallel charge it to 9v. Then use my 1.5 amp charger to get it to 12.5.

If you ever have a serviceable lead acid (little things you can unscrew on the top), if you ever kill it you can top up the fluid and do pretty much that same method and most of the time it'll come back for at least a few months

Also protip, don't go above 14v on a lead acid because you'll either kill it or enjoy acid fumes if it vents

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So my multimeter doesn't even do decimals. Anyway, it read 12. So that's above 11.5.

So I ran the Xenon lights for a few seconds to bring it down to 10.

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Now the trickle charger is actually detecting the resistance without another battery and is actually charging. That's good.

Gonna leave this on here for a few days.

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>>16816656
Broke my fucking probe again.

Cheap Chinese shit.

>>16814434
>My Optima battery doesn't seem to hold a charge anymore.

If you let an AGM run down too often, even the best ones will have shortened life span. That's why you pay attention to the amount of charge remaining in a battery and top it off as needed with a better quality digital battery charger. A charger doesn't have to be expensive and they're all well under $100. You can even get a decent digital schumacher charger at walmart. Don't get a harbor freight one.

Don't overcharge.

If you have a lot of short trips, then your battery can run down if it is a stop/start type of car. Today's cars also draw a lot of parasitic current when stopped. My new car probably would kill a battery if left alone for a month.

>>16816362
If the battery is down to 70% then you can top it off. The thing is to not use too high a charging current. The 6 to 8 amperes setting is a good maximum charge current.

Even though my digital battery charger switches to a trickle current when it senses the battery is at 100%, I still take off the charger. It's a dual-battery car and I'm never quite sure if parasitics and the condition of the 2nd battery influences the charger into some "race condition". When trickling to the AGM cell, my charger typically is at 13.3 volts, but there have been a very very few times it was 14.4 or even 15.6 volts. So I assume the charger had been fooled into some bad condition even though the display says the battery is 100%. I don't assume the battery charger has infallible logic for trickle charging.

>>16814458
You need to take it in to get the HV battery checked out, either it's nearly dead as you're saying or there's a problem in the HV electrical system. I'd get that done ASAP, you're running the risk of the HV battery dying completely and having to have the car towed to the shop.

>>16818981
Yeah, that's why I don't drive that car anymore. I'm planning a trip to California to buy an $800 replacement HV battery pack.

I know for a fact that it's the HV battery, because when I drive my gf's Prius, the gas pedal is very torquy and responsive unlike mine, which takes literally 4 seconds to get power from the gasoline powered engine. I also took the battery pack out a few years ago, and the cells had all degraded evenly.

Usually, what happens when I drive it, the engine halfway dies like I described before, and I have enough power to pull over and restart the car.

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>>16818397
>My car has dual batteries.

I'm wondering if I should install one of these in my dash,

http://www.ebay.com/itm/DC-12V-Marine-Boat-Car-LED-Voltmeter-Dual-Battery-Test-Panel-Rocker-Panel-Switch-/272575798247?hash=item3f76c89be7:g:6VsAAOSwax5YuSw2&vxp=mtr

And install a 2nd battery, in case my 12v ever dies, I can just switch to the 2nd battery.

since it's a prius, I'm thinking about connected a few of the cells of the HV battery to add up to 12v in a separate array (not sure if that's possible, since they're always connected, but if not, I'll just install a 2nd 12v).

I think that would be pretty sweet.