FOUND! Optima Yellow Top.. have inquiry

while cleaning the garage last night I found my old yellow top I took off the 4RUNNER years, and I mean years ago. Obviously I forgot I had it.

I tested it with a volt meter and reads 4.62 volts. My plan is to use it as a house battery for the truck

So, to those battery gurus: best recommendation on how to recharge it? Or spruce it up?

 

So the battery is years and years old but you think it will somehow come back to life?

 

Hence my inquiry

 

It's an Optima, it probably didn't have much life in it to start with. Maybe they've improved their QC but I don't know anyone who would buy one these days.

Back on topic- as for trying to revive it, Optima has info on their website (didn't work for me or anyone else I know but it's worth a shot). https://www.optimabatteries.com/en-us/support/charging/resuscitate-deeply-discharged-battery

 

Thanks for the link, read that last night too. Just wondering if anyone had some unicorn horn dust idea.

I’ll try my motorcycle trickle charger first.

 

Yeah trickle charge it, may get lucky and it still can hold a charge.

 

How many optima batteries have you owned?

 

The older Optimas were well-known for their outstanding quality, sounds like he has one of those (but since it's been stored for so long who knows how good it still is)

I think sometime around 2014(?) they got sold to another company and the quality went downhill. I dunno though, I had a red top in my 04 previously and it was a fantastic battery, lasted 4 or 5 years before I replaced it even though it was still good...just didn't want it to die on me somewhere remote being 5 years old and all.

 

From experience, a battery discharged to 4.6 volts and old and unmaintained, will be permanently damaged. after charging, if it can charge, the battery voltage will almost collapse under any loading.

 

More like 2001. They've been owned by Johnson Controls ever since.

 

damn that far back? well my last one must have been a random good one then, I believe it was put in my truck around 2011

 

Yep, I put one in my FJ-40 back in the late 90s and it lasted a good while so i put one in my first Tacoma as well. When the one in the Cruiser died I replaced it with another Optima but it died in short order. The Autozone where I bought it was having so many returns on Optimas they gave me credit on whatever premium battery they carried at the time. I haven't bothered to buy another Optima and everyone else I know who was using them had similar experiences and quit using them as well.

There were a lot of articles, internet talk (back in the early days of TTORA, etc) and talk around the tracks (SCCA) about how they'd been sold and everyone was having problems with them.

 

See above post; I've had three personally and most of my friends who off-road or race were running them back in the late 90s as well. I know of no one who will even touch one these days- unless they're really made some changes lately they're junk.

 

trickle chargers are for keeping a charged battery charged ,not for bringing a dead battery back to life.

 

Have a place that specializes in batteries locally??

Had a red OPTIMA battery that wouldn’t hold a charge at all and it was old too! Took it to a local shop that specializes in batteries, they charged it overnight and never had an issue afterwards, they only charged me $10cdn.

 

Plates are likely sulfated, its garbage in my eyes.

There's special battery rejuvination tools that I've seen work miracles, but I wouldn't trust it on anything that I use to drive every day.

https://www.carbatterychargerscentral.com/car-battery-chargers-top-10/

Genius and Ctek make the best, we use them at my work and they "fix" stubborn batteries that don't hold charge.

 

Love my group 27 Optima Yellow Top. No issues at all. I see no reason why it won’t continue to be trouble free for many more years to come.

It’s 2.5 years old and supports an ARB 50 QT Fridge/Freezer, a few lights, low consumption appliances and a frequently used 12k winch.


I use a

CTEK (56-864) MUS4.3 12 Volt Fully Automatic 8 Step Battery Charger,Black

CTEK (56-864 MUS4.3 12 Volt Fully Automatic 8 Step Battery Charger to maintain all my batteries, especially in the winter.

It does have a “Battery Recondition” mode for deeply discharged batteries, but I’ve never used it.

 

plug it to a genius charger and see if it can be repaired, my genius has saved many batteries

 

If you can get it to charge at all, you need to put it on a charger or maintainer that has a desulfation circuit. When I battery is stored for an extended period, you get sulfation that can cause it not to hold a charge. Desulfating chargers/maintainers can often reverse the damage if it hasn't progressed too far. Note that even if you get your battery charged up to "normal" voltage, you need to leave the desulfater on it for an extended period. it can take a couple pf weeks to reverse heavy damage. Desulfating chargers/maintainers are also a great choice for extending battery life. (I'm coming up on 9 years on my current 24V aircraft battery which routinely only lasted about 4 years prior to using my BatteryMinder.)

I've got several BatteryMinder products that do a very good job on this. I started using one of their aviation-specific models on my $500 aircraft battery. It worked well enough that I've gotten several more of various models. I'm very happy with all of them. All of their current models are temperature compensated (adjust charging and float voltage for ambient temperature) and have the desulfation feature. Even their lower cost 1.5A model 1510 (and model 1500) have those features and do a great job. I'm not a fan of the Battery Tender chargers, since they lack the desulfation feature.

 

Update: after numerous tries and different charges: battery dead.

We can now close this thread. Thanks you all for your comments