Optima Yellow Top battery

Hey yall,

I was recommended to get one of these and I did a quick check and found some positive reviews and went ahead and pulled the trigger. These things are expensive - $250. I got a refund on a dead one and ended up paying $90 to get mine.

I posted my purchase on my build thread and @Jamesboy2233 responded he was less than impressed. By then I had already done some further reading on it and found that the reviews are a pretty mixed bag. I think I bought into some marketing hype and didn't do enough homework.

LMK your experience with these things!

 

Other than marketing, what makes you want to buy one?

What will it do for you that a standard $60-$90 battery wouldn't do?

 

It helps to have a little history on the possible cause of mixed bag of reviews. Optima was made in the USA. In the early 2000s Optima was purchased and the new parent company cut cost and moved production to Mexico. There was some overlap in the mid/late 2000s where both the US factory and the Mexican one were producing batteries. In 2008 I think the parent company closed USA production and shifted all production to Mexico. It is the Mexican made batteries that are said to be of poor quality and not at all what the Optima brand used to be. While the USA plant closed in 2008, there was still stock of the USA made batteries that likely lingered around for a little while before eventually all being sold and replaced with Mexican ones.

I had a yellow top that I purchased in 2005 for winching on my Wrangler Rubicon. That battery was a trooper and did great on long hard winch pulls in well below freezing temperatures. I kept it for 8 years across several vehicles before eventually selling it with a vehicle. I would no longer buy an Optima and instead run a USA made NorthStar AGM. They are ultra high performance mix deep/starting cycle that are quiet a bit better than Optima.

Compare 27F batteries specs:

Optima yellow top
15x more vibration resistant
CA: 1025A
CCA: 830A
RC: 140 min
Charge/Discharge cycles: 300
Warranty: 3yrs
Made in Mexico
Price: Approx $300

NorthStar
28x more vibration resistant
CA: 1750
CCA: 930A
RC: 195 min
Charge/Discharge cycles: 900
Warranty: 5yrs
Made in the USA
Price: Approx $350 (before available coupons of 10-20% off)

The better battery seems pretty clear.

 

It's a "deep cycle" battery. Meaning it can be drained to a low charge and brought back up many times. It's good for vehicles that use a lot of accessories.. Like if you want to tailgate party and things like that.

 

I have red top in mine for the double terminals for my winch and it has been in for 4 years without any issues.
I live in the south, so it gets hot as balls for 10 months a year and I go to NW PA every thanksgiving and no issues. My factory battery did not make it 2 years...

 

I misunderstood. I thought you were talking about my battery. Yeah, i agree, it looks like the red top is no different than any other good starting battery. The blue top is similar to the yellow top in that it's a deep cycle battery that can be charged and discharged many times. In fact, I'm pretty sure you could use a blue top if it fits although I believe it is considerably heavier in weight.

 

Blue top are good marine batteries. I have one in a ranger z Comanche as my cranking/graph/electronics battery. The price is a little high, I just run parts store brand batteries in my Tacoma. I don’t think the quality is what it once was though.

 

It looks like @crashnburn80 has once again done his homework. I saw what he mentioned about the reduction in quality after sending production to Mexico but I wasn't aware of the Northstar battery which he's demonstrated appears to be the superior unit. (If you can swing the $300 + cost).

If you google "dual purpose car batteries" the choices are pretty limited

 

You can pick up NorthStars under the X2 label at Batteries Plus. You can buy online and pickup in store, use the coupon code listed on their site for 10-20% off. Picking up locally saves on the shipping and eliminates the wait.

 

Batteries Plus X2 battery is the bomb !! Works great, posts are brass and the case is solid quality. X2 has been flawless.

 

I wish I saw this post months ago. I bought a new Yellowtop because my original one was drained dead. I couldn’t jump it at the time and bought a new one because I had plans to do a double battery set up. Dropped off my dead Yellowtop to be charged and it tested bad. It was three years old and was only used for starting. My truck sits for months at a time in southern Louisiana as I’m at sea but it should of lasted longer than that. I had already bought the other Yellowtop and had been running it for a few thousand miles before I had the other one tested. Almost tempted to buy two Northstars prior to my dual battery setup

 

Been running yellow top in '98 taco 3.4L for 4 years. No problems so far. I started using Optima because I had an older Taco where the regular lead-acid would sometimes leak some battery acid and eat into the supports underneath (The cheap plastic tray under the stock battery cracked and allowed fluid to drip through. So I switched to yellow when I got the current Taco. I'm on my second yellow top. Got 8 years on first one and I still have it for backup for my other vehicles when needed.

 

Northstar FTW

 

I've read other people's reviews about this too.. the yellow top doesn't like to sit for long periods

 

Good news

 

I'm a lighting designer and photographer, and frequently run small events, film shoots and shows in remote locations off my truck. I bought an yellow top 4-5 years ago and paired it with a heavy duty Antigravity lithium jumpstarter. While we have run the Optima down several times to where it couldn't start the truck, it's always returned back to full strength and remains in good condition today (I just had it checked out before driving into the Big Bend back country two weeks ago). I know the popular opinion is that they aren't as good as they once were, but I've been very happy with the way mine has held up in the Texas heat, and would happily buy another when this one goes bad.

 

Resing an old thread, but I just had an Optima yellow top go bad in 6 months, O'Reilly covered the warranty and swapped it out. Big time bummer.