JD455 Battery - Go with Optima, JD or other???

[davefr]

My Optima Yellow Top D51R finally went bad after 10 years in my JD455 Diesel.

I've been happy with Optima but the latest reviews are really troubling with lots of reports of very short life. Should I stick with Optima, go with the JD OEM battery or go aftermarket.

I'm kind of leary of aftermarket L&G tractor batteries because they leak and just don't last long.

Any opinions? Have Optima's really gone downhill in quality?

 

[psj12]

I put an yellow top Optima in an old Nufffield tractor I had 9 years ago. I sold it to my BIL and the battery is still in good shape and he keeps the tractor outside. The length of time they last make them a good deal when you figure I would have had to replace a regular battery at least twice during that period

 

[mudcat47537]

The older Optima batteries were great, I have a couple that are 10 years old. But I have purchases 2 others in the last 2 years and they are not of the same quality. I had heard that Optima was bought by a bigger battery company and well the rest is history. As much as I like the older ones I won't be buying any more.

 

[Xfaxman]

I have three old Optima batteries that are just like the Energizer Bunny!

Odyssey seems to be at the top of the heap now.

Sears Platinum series AGM batteries are supposed to be made by Odyssey.

 

[Edward. S]

I have three old Optima batteries that are just like the Energizer Bunny!

Odyssey seems to be at the top of the heap now.

Sears Platinum series AGM batteries are supposed to be made by Odyssey.

Yes, I have 4 Odysseys. One in a minivan, smaller tractor and two in my class 7 truck. All under 2 years old. Very good, no issues what so ever even after months of storage with terminals connected.

The two batteries in the class 7 truck are very reliable even after multiple cycles of lifting on the power-tail-gate on the back of the truck.

 

[94BULLITT]

I got a optima for my car for Christmas. I had a guy tell me while I was putting it in that there were not any good. He had some for his boat and they did not hold up very well. I have heard the same thing on here, after I got a optima, everyone says a oddyssey is really good.

 

[Xfaxman]

I got a optima for my car for Christmas. I had a guy tell me while I was putting it in that there were not any good. He had some for his boat and they did not hold up very well. I have heard the same thing on here, after I got a optima, everyone says a oddyssey is really good.

You win some, you lose some, some get rained out, and sometimes you lose the ball in the high weeds.

I have an Optima blue top in our horse trailer, but it is not even a year old, so time will tell.

 

[94BULLITT]

You win some, you lose some, some get rained out, and sometimes you lose the ball in the high weeds.

I have an Optima blue top in our horse trailer, but it is not even a year old, so time will tell.

I have my fingers crossed. So far I am not impressed.

 

[jenkinsph]

I have a lot of batteries to maintain and don't have the patience or facility to keep these on trickle chargers (over 30 batteries), What has worked for me for the last 10 years since I can't afford to have the premium batteries in everything is to use the Odyssey batteries in my boat, campers and main winter service truck and use the Walmart Everstart in the ones that get cranked up routinely. The Everstart Maxx seems to hold up well enough with routine use and last six years or better in starting battery applications, about $70 to $90 bucks. The Odyssey and Sears Platinum DieHard agm batteries are very good deep cycle batteries but more expensive and the best batteries I have ever had to run campers and trolling motors but they do cost quite a bit more. While I would prefer to have the Odyssey batteries in everything I just can't justify the cost.

 

[arkvet]

I splurged and put a yellow top optima (retrofitted) into my 4300 CUT a little more than a year ago. It was awesome. Lots of power and held a charge very well. Then one day it just wouldn't start. I went through lots of troubleshooting and even made a TBN thread requesting help. Tons of suggestions and a few people asked about the battery. To be honest I quickly shot down that possibility as I had already put a charger on it just to see and it showed fully charged.

Sure enough, after a while I pulled the battery and took it to be load tested. bad battery! Fortunately there was a free replacement and I was within the window. I'm on yellow top #2 and it hasn't been two years yet. Without free replacement I'd have replaced with something else. Fingers crossed.

 

[jeepmanjr]

Old thread, but...

I have four yellow top dual-purpose Optimas. Two in my Jeep and one in my Rhino to run lights, etc. They're coming up on three years old and no problems yet. I have a fourth that I used to float charge with a large regulated DC power supply (as a backup for power outages) to run some communications hardware, but have since removed it. I plan on putting that in my FX24D tomorrow.

FYI, I use a Schumacher battery charger that has an AGM mode on all my Optimas every month or so. The charger will also automatically desulfate a battery if that's a problem.

Some fellas have complained about short life spans with the yellow tops. They are dual purpose batteries, but deep cycle nevertheless. Sometimes these batteries will appear to be totally dead and the charger will not even attempt to charge it. AGM's are susceptible to very deep discharge rendering them nonchargeable for regular ol' analog chargers - that's by design to protect the charger. Never deep-6 a "dead" AGM battery until you've first tried to resuscitate it with an AGM specific charger. If all you have is an analog charger, try connecting the "bad" Optima to a second good battery in parallel (+ to +, - to -). THEN connect your analog charger to the good battery. That should fool it into charging the dead one. Just keep an eye on the dead batt for rising temperatures. If the dead batt gets hot and/or vents, immediately disconnect. Once the Optima reaches about 10.5 volts or so you should be able to directly connect your charger to it.

I watched a friend regularly abuse a red top while running a winch in his Jeep. He actually smoked the cables on one occasion! That battery lasted for years. I love my Optima batteries. I hope this helps someone.

 

[beenthere]

I have good luck with the JD batteries.

 

[dirt ditch]

Back in 2007 when I bought a new 790 there were threads on tbn of some folks having problems with JD batteries and some guys were going with Optima. For a while I was thinking it would be a good idea to do the same. I never replaced mine and now the JD StrongBox battery is 7 years old, still starting my tractor, even when the temperature got down to 5 degree F last week. If ever it does fail I will replace it with another JD StrongBox battery.