Problem w/ Red Top

Ok, so I have an Optima Red Top battery for about 1year. I pull my doors, forget about dome light staying on, leave the jeep to go on vacation. Come back my battery is dead, no suprise. Take it to advance auto to have them recharge it. they tell me the battery is done and won't take a charge. So i switch it out for another, no big deal it's a free replacement. I get my second redtop, have it for about 3months...girlfriends takes jeep, forget to turn headlights off, kills battery. Get it jumped off, and drive it for about a week. Everything seems fine. But with winter coming, and would like the battery to get a full charge, I take it to advance auto again to charge battery. they try to charge it and they say it's bad again. So here's my dilemma, i'm killing these redtops and can't get them to take a full charge. What kinda of short/alternator issue would be causing this? Unless I take it to them to have them test it, the battery otherwise seems to be fine...meaning that it always cranks for me, and I can get it jumpstarted back when it dies. I know a yellow top is better for winching, but on this new battery(less than 3months old) i've probably only winched maybe a total of 10mins, I wouldn't think that drawl for not much time would cause a cell to go bad. Just wondering if their are any thoughts about this before I start tearing into wiring issues. Thanks for your input. If all else fails i'm gonna try to contact optima and see if they have in thoughts as to this or just switch it out for a yellow top and try that. Thanks again :repair:

ahh i don't get it you bring it to advanced auto to have them charge it (do they have some supercharge i don't know about??? seems to me they could have some faulty tester or something there that is telling you that your bat is bad. on the other hand you could have a bad alt or problem with the computer telling your alt to only charge the bat so much and then stop charging. you bat should be right around 14 volts with the vehicle running.

yeah my battery is saying right around 14volt on the car volt meter and i think saying something like 12.9-13something with a multimeter. Advance just advertise battery testing and charging. they have a machine that will charge batteries and while doing that test them. I was wondering the samething if their tester is bad. I've got to take it to Autozone to replace anyways so i'll have them test it too and see what they say. That would be the easiest fix if it was just their faulty tester. but i'll just have to keep looking

Sprial cell batteries need to be charged with the SLOOOWWW charge (like a low 2 amp trickle charge with takes overnight) they are probably trying to boost it with the high amp 2 hour charge.

mmmkay325 said:

I know a yellow top is better for winching...

Click to expand...

You are mistaken.

Yellow top = slow draw (lights, radios)

Red top = short burst, high amp draw (starting, winching)

I've often wondered if I was charging my red top properly.I think I'll start my own thread instead of hijacking.....It's called "proper care of a optima" for search purposes.

With the Alt charging properly the voltage should read 13.2vdc to 14.2vdc with the engine running, no electrical load and 12vdc-12.5vdc with engine off. The best tester is a Sun VAT-40 carbon load pile which will put a load on the battery. I recall that a battery should not ever fall below 9vdc with a 350amp load for 5 secs. There are smaller load testers available from Kragens, Advanced, etc. Harbor Freight had a 'good enough' one for $45 last spring.

Bringing a battery back from door nail dead, such as leaving the dome lamps on for a week, requires a very slow trickle charge as stated earlier. Sears has a nice small trickle charger. A med size solar cell used for RVs will also work to accomplish this. It took a week to kill it, plan on that amount of time to recharge at a trickle.

good luck,
Tom

I had an old cell phone charger lying around, and I noticed it was about 13vdc output, about 1 amp. I cut the end off, stripped the wires, and it's been working great as a trickle charger.

Make sure they are testing it using optima or gelcell tessters, not regular agm tresters. If you test an Optima with a regular tester, it will read bad 100% of the time. If you get near a Pep Boys, their new testers can test the Optimas and Marine battterys. ( I work at one, otherwise I would have never known this.)

oh ok....i bet that's what is wrong. It appears to just be the regular battery tester they use on any battery, but i'll check. thanks for your advise