Not getting another Optima battery
Discussion
To be fair the Optima has lasted by far the longest of any battery, 5 or 6 years but it gave up just before lockdown.
I used to get about 2 years out of the batteries in years gone by, but since getting the Optima I bought a C-TEC battery charger, I think my crap old one was probably in part due to the early demise of the others.
So I just replaced the optima with a regular one that had a 5 year warranty. Decent normal battery that actually fits properly £70, Optima is £170 with 1 year warranty....
One other thing that bothers me slightly about Optima’s is that my C-TEC charger has a different setting for AGM batteries, there must be a reason I’ve not worked out yet but I used it anyway. But slightly more worrisome is the E93 335i BMW I recently got, its from just before they started fitting stop start to all the models so hadn’t got an AGM battery, I found they can still be fitted but you need to recode the car to tell it so it can change the charging system accordingly, not much chance of that in a Cerb! The Optima’s obviously do work in the Cerbs but I wonder if we’re not getting the best out of then?
My C-TEC has the reconditioning function & has recovered a good few batteries (more than paying for itself), our old E39 BM had a new battery a good while before I put the optima in the Cerb, it’s done its fair share of sitting about getting flat enough not to start but C-TEC did its job & that battery is still going strong.
On a different note it was very nice to finally get the Cerb back out after months off the road, the twin turbo 335i is a reasonably quick car but the Cerb still blows the doors off it!
I used to get about 2 years out of the batteries in years gone by, but since getting the Optima I bought a C-TEC battery charger, I think my crap old one was probably in part due to the early demise of the others.
So I just replaced the optima with a regular one that had a 5 year warranty. Decent normal battery that actually fits properly £70, Optima is £170 with 1 year warranty....
One other thing that bothers me slightly about Optima’s is that my C-TEC charger has a different setting for AGM batteries, there must be a reason I’ve not worked out yet but I used it anyway. But slightly more worrisome is the E93 335i BMW I recently got, its from just before they started fitting stop start to all the models so hadn’t got an AGM battery, I found they can still be fitted but you need to recode the car to tell it so it can change the charging system accordingly, not much chance of that in a Cerb! The Optima’s obviously do work in the Cerbs but I wonder if we’re not getting the best out of then?
My C-TEC has the reconditioning function & has recovered a good few batteries (more than paying for itself), our old E39 BM had a new battery a good while before I put the optima in the Cerb, it’s done its fair share of sitting about getting flat enough not to start but C-TEC did its job & that battery is still going strong.
On a different note it was very nice to finally get the Cerb back out after months off the road, the twin turbo 335i is a reasonably quick car but the Cerb still blows the doors off it!
I've had mixed experiences... The red-tops have been fine but the Yellows (which I used in my Landy) were crap.
What made it even worse was the support I had from Optima or lack of. I had bought the batteries in the UK but they failed shortly after arriving in Oz for a trip out there (I shipped the car direct). Essentially the answer was "bog-off and return them to your supplier".
I ended up with Odyssey instead and they were great.
M
What made it even worse was the support I had from Optima or lack of. I had bought the batteries in the UK but they failed shortly after arriving in Oz for a trip out there (I shipped the car direct). Essentially the answer was "bog-off and return them to your supplier".
I ended up with Odyssey instead and they were great.
M
camel_landy said:
I've had mixed experiences... The red-tops have been fine but the Yellows (which I used in my Landy) were crap.
What made it even worse was the support I had from Optima or lack of. I had bought the batteries in the UK but they failed shortly after arriving in Oz for a trip out there (I shipped the car direct). Essentially the answer was "bog-off and return them to your supplier".
I ended up with Odyssey instead and they were great.
M
Yes I found that when trying to ask them anything! What made it even worse was the support I had from Optima or lack of. I had bought the batteries in the UK but they failed shortly after arriving in Oz for a trip out there (I shipped the car direct). Essentially the answer was "bog-off and return them to your supplier".
I ended up with Odyssey instead and they were great.
M
I had a yellow top as its a deep cycle so designed to go flat, it did quite a few times, with no ill effects till it finally gave up. Also the yellow top matched the car nicely!
Will be interesting to see how long the normal battery lasts with the C-TEC charger. I actually stumbled over the instructions for it, it charges at a slightly different voltage for AGM batteries...
900T-R said:
Jhonno said:
The coding is purely for the IBC, so it knows what it is doing. Nothing to do with the battery itself.
What he said. 
Not had chance to look into it properly yet, too many other things to fix or mod, I swear old BMWs go wrong more than Cerbs! I’ve not even started tuning it yet either...
Gassing Station | Cerbera | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff