It requires a 51R Battery. Is the Interstate one better than the D51R Yellow top? Not looking to relocate.

 

I personally stay far away from Optima. I would run a no name $60 battery before I would ever run another Optima. With that said, many have had luck with Costco batteries. You can't go wrong with any Diehard either. If you were thinking of paying Optima prices, the Sears Diehard Platinum is an awesome battery. You get a 4 year full replacement 100 month prorated warranty. It is an Odyssey battery ($300+ specialty battery) rebadged as a Diehard and sold for $200. The car cranks over much quicker than with the Optima, the stereo runtime with the engine off seems endless and at full tilt that's . It's an AGM battery so you don't have to worry about leaks and corrosion. The performance is great and with the warranty, it's not likely you'll ever have to buy another battery again, at least not at full price. Many people run these batteries in the car audio world when they need the extra reserve power and the additional power for peak passages. It has no problem supplying nearly 1,800w for my system.

If by SC you mean supercharger, I'm not sure if they make the batteries I mentioned in that size so disregard.

 

I will go to sears and see if they have that battery. From my research it comes down to either the interstate mega tron 2 or die hard series 51R battery. Let me see what they have and at least ill be another step closer.

 

I like Deka AGM batteries, same Braille only cheaper. They are affordable, small and can me mounted any orientation. Can't go wrong with costco either, they have a great no frills warranty. Sears, autozone and Walmart all required the battery be tested before replacement which takes 1-3 hours.

 

I'm not sure if it says testing is required in the small print but I've swapped a year old Diehard Gold battery out of my dad's GN while he was in Iraq, and they replaced it no questions asked, no car and no test required. It wasn't the battery's fault, the car hadn't been started in a year but it was a 10 minute process. Maybe I got lucky, I don't know.

 

Yea the testing might vary store to store. I have 2 cars that just sit around slowly killing batteries.

 

I loved my Optima yellow top. I got it when I was 18 and I'm 31 now, and that battery is still going strong in my friend's e90 335i. 13 years out of a battery you don't see that much if ever. I've gotten cheapo batteries for my TL, and I'm on my fourth one in six years.

I guess Optimas are as good as they once were, but I won't comment on that.

 

Optima's quality dropped once they moved into a new production facility. As for Sears' battery warranty, I had a Diehard that was VISIBLY leaking acid and they said they STILL had to test it....SMH. So, I guess, it DOES vary from store to store.

 

As for using those motorcycle batteries for your car, it would be ok as long as you do not have anything more than a factory stereo system. Those small batteries lack the Reserve Capacity (RC) that the larger car batteries have.

 

I've read that about the Optima's quality declining. I still regret selling my CL with the Optima yellow top in it.

 

I DO have a pre-move blue top in my '03 thats worked for quite a while....

 

13 years ago they were pretty good. I had one go over 7 years in the GN and longer in the next car it went in. I also blew through 5 of them in a couple years, my father went through more. The one in my Tl lasted a few years but it was weak as hell, should have been replaced much sooner. Some lasted only a couple months in my GN, fine one day, no voltage whatsoever the next. They're total crap now. It's possible you can get a good one here and there but I'm not willing to go through that when I already know of a couple of really good batteries.

The Diehard is everything the Optima is advertised to be. I've never had to get one tested but I don't think it's too much to ask to have them stick their portable tester on it for a minute. If I remember right the AGM Diehard can't be inverted but it can lay on it's side.