I am in the market for a new battery. I do about 20% off-road and about 80% on road (I use my discovery as my daily driver about 30 miles a day). I am looking at batteries and trying to decide which to buy. Is an optima yellow top worth 2x a dura-last battery (for my uses)? The advantage of the optima (yellow) is that it can handle being drained and re-charged without negative effect right? it does get cold as hell here often (northern colorado). At some point in the future I want to add an ARB bull-bar and a warn winch, but this is probably at least a year away...

tia

matt rickman
colorado

 

Matt,
Since you are local, call me and we can talk.
303-862-7680

 

I would just buy the Duralast for now. And after you get your winch and you kill the Duralast then you can buy the Optima. But I would save your money for now. Put it towards your ARB bumper.

 

Get the yellow topnow so you wont have to worry about it later. I mean, if you're worried about saving money, it's all the more reason to buy the Optima now so you're not spending your hard earned money now only to end up spending close to double later. That means triple! No bueno. Buy now, or pay later. Um, wait...

 

Get the red top I have had one years and have a Warn 9000.
Red top has more CCA's for coldand the few times you get stuck leave the motor running.

Most times you will be pulling someone else out so the motor
will be running.

 

I always thought that the Yellows were deep cycle. [&:] Isn't that what you'd want (a deep cycle battery), especially if you're planning to run a winch? A winch would run your battery until its completely dead right? And a deep cycle is what you need in those particular sitchiations I thought. Could be wrong though, I'll check out the Optima website tonight.

As far as I know, the Reds are just starter batteries and you can get the Reds, Yellows or Bluesin various CCAs.

 

Reds have more CCA's than Yellows or Blues (Optima's)
now if you can't run your motor with the winch then a Yellow
Top would be better so if you need more CCA's more of the
time then Red Top is it.

 

Red Top were never made to withstand the heavy draw of a winch, I went thru 2 Red Tops before I got past their ratings and found they were not able to withstand heavy draws and recycle from it. I replace both of them a year ago with 2 Yellow Tops, have more actual amps to the alternator, it puls harder, batteries stay cooler, so does the winch.