Optima Battery Life in a Pantera

Company ownership has changed along with battery quality. No more 14 year life on current models. JD

When I was out shopping for a new battery, Costco has a 3-year 100% replacement warranty on their 'Kirkland' batteries, but it was either 12 or maybe 18 months on the Optimas (and they cost twice as much) - If I knew I could get 8-10 years out of an Optima, I would have purchased it, but the short warranty made me question the durability.

Congratulations on getting so much time out of the battery though, that's very impressive!

quote:

Originally posted by #5754:
When I was out shopping for a new battery, Costco has a 3-year 100% replacement warranty on their 'Kirkland' batteries, but it was either 12 or maybe 18 months on the Optimas (and they cost twice as much) - If I knew I could get 8-10 years out of an Optima, I would have purchased it, but the short warranty made me question the durability.


Congratulations on getting so much time out of the battery though, that's very impressive!

I think if this battery had a Battery Tender on it right from the beginning, instead of only the last five years, it might have lasted longer. It would still start the Pantera when it was cold, but once it got fully warmed up, it didn't have enough to turn it over. The starter on the car is also good and Optima said that the battery only had about 1/2 of its original cranking power when place under load, but still held a constant 12.5 volts. The Optima really doesn't have much of a warranty, but the new one seems great and it will be on a Battery Tender all the time except when the car is taken on a trip as in Reno next month.

All batteries need charging

How often did you drive your P that the Optima lasted that long

I suggest a battery tender - have had one on my car for over 7 years - same battery - always at full charge when I need it

I have a first generation Interstate (Workaholic) spiral-cell. It is going on 14+ years. The only time I ran it down to needing a charge was this winter. I was testing and re-aligning my Taurus window motor conversions.

I also installed a disconnect switch when the battery was new. Possibly this has also helped the battery's long life.

Jeff

quote:

Originally posted by Panterapatt:
All batteries need charging

How often did you drive your P that the Optima lasted that long

I suggest a battery tender - have had one on my car for over 7 years - same battery - always at full charge when I need it

I drive my Pantera at least a couple of times a month and then to Las Vegas every year, which comes out to about a 1100 mile round trip. I have a Battery Tender on most of my vehicles that don't get much use and the batteries do seem to last longer. The new Optima will always be on a Battery Tender, so it should be interesting to see how long that one will last. The Optima may out live me, so someone else will have to do the update on this story. This battery also has a disconnect switch, which I always use when the car is not in use. I am not sure if that helps because the only drain on the electrical system when the car is not running is a VDO clock.

Good story. Not to get off subject, but I was at a car show and the Optima booth dudes said to go with the yellow top instead of the red top if you drive your car infrequently. Yes, Costco has the deals and they are good on their warranty.

Battery tenders will damage Glass mat batteries. They need to remain charged but not over charging. They can not be run down or charged improperly. That is the main critical things with glass mat batteries.

Even lead acids typically won't last a year if ran completely down but for a glass mat its game over.

I am running 2 motorcycle batteries in my MG. I am only on year 3 right now but I have a battery cutoff for winter. I turn it off late fall, turn it on in the spring and it fires right up.

Lead acids in general last around 5 years. Our aircraft used to have Ni cads but all have lead acid in them now. We are lucky if we see 5 out of any of them so 13 is outstanding.

One more note about lead acids, I have heard some who take lead acids which have seem to have failed, flushed them out the re serviced them. Evidently the breakdown of the plates sits in the bottom of the battery conducting through the plates allowing the battery to discharge.

Just had this discussion on another forum and Optima and any of the gel cell or AGM (Abosrbed glass mat) batteries suffer if deep discharged. Ideally they should not fall below 50% charge and often if you have high demand and/or a std amperage alternator the charging rate on a drive is not enough to replenish them. If they ever get fully discharged then their life is reduced to something like 300 cycles.

The answer is to use an intelligent battery charger like the CTEK, Deltran or similar. (The CTEK is out of Sweden and consitently achieves the highest consumer ratings) They have different charging modes as they receive feedback from the battery state.

I have one of the small Deltran units that permanently attaches to the battery, just a case of plug it into the extension cord when I get home.

quote:

One more note about lead acids, I have heard some who take lead acids which have seem to have failed, flushed them out the re serviced them. Evidently the breakdown of the plates sits in the bottom of the battery conducting through the plates allowing the battery to discharge.

More normally the lead 'sulfates' on the surface of the plates and passivates the cell, when a charge is applied the reaction is normally reversed, but not totally, the deeper the discharge the more passivation occurs. The Pb + H2SO4 --> PbSO4 + H2O. Therefore I suspect the action of flushing and adding in fresh acid is more the reason for a 'renewal'.

No actually the stuff int he bottom of the lead acid battery was actually up to the plates. This trick was actually showed to him by a guy who owned a chain of battery stores.

I have seen 2 glass mat batteries run down and neither worked at all much less 300 cycles. They were dead in the water.

Tonight I returned a Red top Optima out of the GT5 to Summit Racing; 14 months old and dead as a dodo. I drove a round trip of 350 miles to Mike Drew's last Sunday and isolated the battery with the disconnect all week, tonight it wouldn't even 'click' the starter.

Interestingly when I turned up at Summit the counter guy said "oh no, not another, that's the third one today" we got talking and apparently these things are coming back quicker than going out. Summit were good enough to give me a full $$ credit so I could buy another battery and start the 3 yr warranty cycle again. Apparently Optima are now only pro-rating the 3 yr warranty from original purchase date, which tells me they know they have an issue.

I also took the oportunity to pick up a couple more battery tenders as the CTEK US 3300 intelligent charger is on special at the moment for $56.65.

Julian

Interesting posts, I’m on my second Red top… first one lasted two weeks. Wouldn’t hold a charge.. Exchanged it, but the store had to pull two to find one that had a charge.. New one has been fine for two years now.

Interesting.

My first red top died this winter in my 68 Shelby. It was I believe from 1987. Pretty sure. That is 22 years old.

The Pantera's is 8 years old and is as new.

I have one in my son's SVT Contour. It died this year also. It was in the car since 2000.

So I would have to say that battery to me is well worth the $140 vs the $70 battery from the auto parts store that will never live to satisfy it's 5 year warranty. Try about three years on that one.

Maybe you guys just got a bad batch OR these things, seemingly like every other part, is being out sourced to fourth world countries.

I know a lot of the Bendix brand is now being made in Argentina and somewhere around 50% of the parts are defective right out of the box.

I look at it this way. We have something like 50,000 traffic fatalities annually in this country. Who's gonna miss a few corporate scumbags who's prime reason to exist is to rape us all and leave us standing naked by the roadside.

I say first tar and feather them, then lynch them up. It sounds like most of you have no idea just how deep this problem has become in our society. At some point there has to be some accountability somewhere. This is just my choice at where to start.

Sorry. I didn't mean to preach but venting becomes necessary at some point. Guillotine works for me too.