I finally need a new battery and wanted to get an Optima. Any opinions on Red or Yellow Top and what size do we need?

I've been using a Red Top for years......

Just bought a red top myself. There are many threads about Optima, but I like mine so far.

Yellow tops are deep cycle batteries like boats use for their trolling motors. Our cars like big current for shorter periods. That's what the red tops do. I've had my red top for ten years now. It won't last forever but I've never had one go that long.

Good luck

I have had nothing but bad luck with Optima over the last few years QC went downhill.

I recommend Odyssey now.

I am running a PC925 in my car and a couple in my diesel truck. I even put one in my dad's car. Even with 11:1 compression and sitting for weeks on end, it starts without a problem.

Odyssey battery specs

I have used the same red top in my 914 for 12+ years now, and it still starts with no issues (turning over a 3.0L).
I only drive the car about once a month in fair weather, not enought time to really charge the battery, but somehow it keeps working (it's really amazing).

You need size 34R, but a 34 will work if you've got a longer cables.

Others have posted that the 35 works also, and is lighter.

See Dave Sprinkle's post here: Here

Red is for auto, yellow is deep cycle for trucks/jeeps and crap to run a whinch on and blue is for boats... deep cycle as well.

I'll second the 34 / 34R. I've got a 34 that was in whitey. To tell you how good these cars are, whitey was in the garage for over a year maybe 2. A buddy needed a jump, so I grabbed the 34 and took off to meet him. His battery was totally dead so I mounted my 34 in his 2000 328, this was in 2005 or 2006. Tried the ignition to see if it'd start, and it did! The battery had been sitting in my garage for at least a year, maybe 2 and it started. These really are great batteries.

Old optimas good
New optimas really bad.

In short, a 34R has the terminals in the same position as the original battery, but needs to have the small side mounting feet trimmed to fit into the tray. A 34 does fit, but the terminals are harder to access.

My experience is that the old Optimas were great, but the new ones have not had the same reputation. Don't know what changed,mbut my old one lasted for over ten years with a battery maintainer hooked up over the winter. My last Optima (I won't buy another one) was a 34R that only lasted three years.

For the price they want for them these days, I don't think they're worth the money.

I went with a 35 due to weight and price. It barely clears the rain tray, but has worked fine so far. I wanted to buy it locally in case I had any problems, and found that Batteries Plus had the best price - about $165. Not cheap, but not gonna leak either.

I have a friend in the battery business, i told him i wanted an Optima and he asked me "why?" i replied "well my old one lasted for years and years" he told me the new ones are "absolute shit!" as per his recommendation i got an Odyssey PC925, its smaller, lighter, and I love it so far.

I have no personal experience with the new Mexican produced Optimas, Just passing the word along as best i can

I tried the Optima red top 34R first...the terminals hit the factory rain tray when I tried to close the engine lid. Plus, I would need to trim some of the battery case itself to fit into the stock battery tray. I exchanged it for the 34 - perfect fit all around.

The new ones are junk.

Thanks. All very helpful.

Can you tell us exactly which Odyssey 925 you bought and if there were any mounting 'accessories' you had to buy? The PC 925MJT looks like it would be the one but as far as I can tell there is no adapter that would let it mount exactly like the stock battery. Is this the case? Did you have to come up with some alternate method?

thanks in advance

I recently picked up a 35. Killer deal on it. $25 rebate on top of Autozone beating any price on the net. Paid like $90 for it when it was all said and done. Rebate ended, but Autozone should be able to give you a good price if you call up.

That was a great deal. When I checked, Autozone wanted crazy money for a 35.

Odyssey here too, but a PC1200 so slightly bigger than the 925 as I run a lot of Soundstream class A Amps so need the current draw.

Ken, I called them up to see if they could beat the best internet price I could find. Their website prices were quite abit more.

I was able to bolt down the PC925 battery hold down bracket in the stock battery tray, and then put the battery in the tray.

I've had a red top in mine for at least 6-7 years, always on a battery tender. Never failed me yet and the car is not driven that often. Still sittting on the original battery tray as well!! (and I should know as I've had the car since new...)

Anyone know if this is a 34 or 34R Optima? It was new years ago and has just sat in a dry garage for over 4 years. Hoping it could be charged at a Optima dealer and brought back to life..

Just found this thread on Pelican...great stuff!

http://forums.pelicanparts.com/porsche-911...ma-battery.html

How to recharge a deeply-discharged (below 10.5 volts) Optima battery.

Virtually any standard automotive battery charger on the market will charge an Optima battery just fine. However, most automotive battery chargers will not charge any battery that has been discharged below 10.5 volts. If a standard flooded battery is discharged below 10.5 volts, there’s not much of a chance that it will be serviceable again. However, AGM-style batteries, like Optimas, can be recovered from a deeply-discharged state, by using an AGM-specific charger or by parallel charging.

To charge a deeply-discharged Optima with a regular charger, you can wire a second fully-charged automotive battery (12V+) to the discharged Optima in parallel (+ to + and – to –). Then hook up the charger to either battery, setting the charger at 10 amps for 2 hours and monitoring it frequently.



When the discharged Optima reaches 10.5 volts or more, remove the second battery and continue charging the Optima until fully charged.

Typically we recommend charging at a relatively low current, such as 2 amps, but when a battery has been deeply discharged, some sulfation of the battery plates may have occurred. However, if you charge at 10 amps, the higher current will help to break up sulfation that may have occurred. If you have an automatic charger, let it run until the charger indicates charging is complete. If you have a manual charger, estimate charging time by multiplying the capacity (amp hours or Ah) of the battery by 1.2 for a rough estimate of charging time in hours.

In most cases, these steps will recover an Optima battery. It’s ok for the Optima battery to get slightly warm during the charging process, but hot to the touch or hissing from the battery indicates a short and the process should be discontinued. If you are able to fully charge the battery, but it gradually loses it's charge (without any loads on it) over 12-24 hours, the battery is probably not recoverable.

If you’d rather not deal with this process, you can always take your battery to a professional battery specialist, like Interstate, who knows AGM technology. Most of them are willing to provide “charge and check” procedures for a small fee and many will provide the service for free.

If you have any other questions, I’ll do my best to answer them. I appreciate your interest in Optima batteries!

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.

I've got the yellow top. Sits for months at a time in our AZ heat and I've had it since 2004. Never an issue and always fires right up. I don't have an answer for the guys that don't own them but simply say "the new ones are junk". My opinion is based on personal experience only.

Well I just bought two new optima red tops for other toys. I now have four old ones setting on the floor. I took one old one in for exchange and one they will try to save it. I still have one in one of my fieros that won't stay up. I now have two cetec chargers that will stay on the new optimas so we will see whats what. My 86 gt fiero has been setting for a year and every time I went to drive it the optima was dead so I put a 10 amp charge on it till it got hot. It would be too low to crank two days later. This is a 4 year old battery. This car will get one of the new ones. The last time it got inspected it had 600 miles it over a 16 month period so it now has 0 miles over the last year because of the battery not holding a charge. It also had insurance over that span. I took a 5 year old optima out of my 88 gt that always had a battery tender on it to use in my 58 massey ferguson 65 I just redid and it only lasted for about 4 months using it at least once a week around the place. The only reason I went back to a optima on the tractor is iI had put a billet optima hold down in the massey. I like sealed battery because I hate battery acid but my toys set too much I'm afraid. I will see how using a 130.00 charger on each of them continously works. I may try a odessy on the 914 but that is a ways down the road and I should know by then whether to stay with optima or not.

Yellow top is deep cycle, red is the good old standard. i have a red top that is like 5 years old. and for the past 11 months has been sitting. last night was the 1st time that battery had a work out in a long time. it cranked over my engine over and over.... awesome batt's

Just to add to the thread, I have 5 Optima's 2 of which were Colorado produced, and 3 in Mexico. In short I have nothing but great things to say about all of them, the one I bought most recently was 1 year ago and just tested today at the same cranking apps as when new. To be honest I was a bit bummed when I noticed the "Made in Colorado" left the top of the battery suddenly, though it isn't much surprise given most new car batteries are made in China & shipped over, at least Mexico is in NAFTA right? This is actually the first I've heard of people stating issues with Optimas, makes me wonder if it wasn't a quality control issue with sporadic batteries when the Mexico plant initially opened that has since been resolved...?

If weight is your thing you could certainly install a Braille dry cell battery, but then you wouldn't have the capacity to jump dead diesel trucks like my 914 can with its Red Top Optima!

Some people question the cost of an Optima, and even with dry cell benefits aside, my experience has been that they last twice as long as a quality acid battery at less than twice the cost. Sold! My oldest Optima is from mid-2006 and is still cranking along!

Odyssey are lighter and here you can find all you need to fit them in your 914 http://www.rennline.com/Battery-Mount-Kits/products/169/

"The ODYSSEY Drycell battery combines in one box the characteristics of two separate batteries. It can deep cycle as well as provide enormous cranking power. These dry cell batteries are capable of providing engine cranking pulses in excess of 2150A for 5 seconds as well as 400 charge/discharge cycles to 100% depth of discharge (DOD). A typical starting, lighting and ignition (SLI) battery can do one or the other, but not both. Conventional batteries are either a sprinter or a long distance runner; An ODYSSEY® battery will do both — provide short duration high amperage pulse or low rate long duration drains."

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