Optima Battery Problems

[bobDog]

I have seen 3 batteries explode....1 while I was jumping it. Very impressing...awsome! Acic burns & small facial cuts. Avoid it..big wet fireball....very loud.


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[Hilldweller]

I was doing a walk-through in a university building with the fire marshall and SWAT team commander after a bomb scare and a 12/12 blew up in the can at the FACP.
Boom.
I hit the deck first followed closely by the SWAT guy; the fire marshal was fat and didn't make it to the floor. Even the bomb dog went for cover.
They can certainly blow up with enthusiasm.

But, like you said, Jim, there are intelligent battery meters that would mitigate the threat. The problem is that they're close to $300 for a decent one.
The data you get from them is great though. Internal resistance, temperature, amperage capacity, state of charge. The Optima charger does some of this.

I have meters rolling through my office that cost more than my home. I love gadgets.

[teotwaki]

So the new Optima battery has been performing like a deep cycle battery should over the last couple of weeks. The previous Optima battery always seemed one oar short of being a fully functional 12.6 volt battery during its brief life of 5 months. The bad cell in it shows why it was a struggle for it to keep up with running the Engel 45 fridge. I just had two 3 day offroad trips where the fridge was on 24/7 and I never had to break out the solar panels because daily driving was enough to keep the battery topped off. When I get home and plug the fridge into the AC cord the battery voltage stays high for quite a while and does not immediately self-discharge below 12.6 volts like the previous one did. I also do not have to run my battery charger on it every day so my feeling is that the previous Optima was defective from the start and I hope that this new one will last at least 2 years.

[OptimaJim]

I apologize for the delay in responding to this thread. I was out of the office and I'm just catching up now. Jim, I'm glad to hear your warranty replacement is performing well for you. It was disappointing to read what your dealer shared with you about a distributor dumping “a ton” of amps into our batteries with a “huge” charger. If a distributor is doing that, they are not doing it at our suggestion. In fact, we run a national training program for our wholesale and retail partners to help them better handle warranty claims. If you'd like to share that distibutor's contact information with me via PM, I'd be happy to forward it internally.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.twitter.com/optimabatteries

[teotwaki]

I apologize for the delay in responding to this thread. I was out of the office and I'm just catching up now. Jim, I'm glad to hear your warranty replacement is performing well for you. It was disappointing to read what your dealer shared with you about a distributor dumping “a ton” of amps into our batteries with a “huge” charger. If a distributor is doing that, they are not doing it at our suggestion. In fact, we run a national training program for our wholesale and retail partners to help them better handle warranty claims. If you'd like to share that distibutor's contact information with me via PM, I'd be happy to forward it internally.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.twitter.com/optimabatteries

I don't think that I will sell him out.

After this entire thread has gone by and I have been taken to task on many points I find it ironic that I had a bad battery all along and yet you focus on trying to punish someone who told me the truth about what goes on.

[OptimaJim]

I don't think it's ironic at all that someone who attempts to charge our battery incorrectly would also determine it needs to be replaced. In fact, I would expect that. I'm not trying to punish anyone, I'm just trying to help. While disappointed we weren't able to offer our training program to your distributor, I respect your decision not to share his contact information with me.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.twitter.com/optimabatteries

[teotwaki]

I don't think it's ironic at all that someone who attempts to charge our battery incorrectly would also determine it needs to be replaced. In fact, I would expect that. I'm not trying to punish anyone, I'm just trying to help. While disappointed we weren't able to offer our training program to your distributor, I respect your decision not to share his contact information with me.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.twitter.com/optimabatteries

How can you positively conclude that they charged it "incorrectly"??? I find it sad that the 5 month old Optima battery was bad all along, that the bad battery was verified by an independent test (Autozone), that all of my complaints fell on Optima's deaf ears and yet no admission of product failure or apology is forthcoming.

PS: Reread EXACTLY what I said

I find it ironic that I had a bad battery all along and yet you focus on trying to punish someone who told me the truth about what goes on.

Yet you twist everything into the following:

I don't think it's ironic at all that someone who attempts to charge our battery incorrectly would also determine it needs to be replaced.

The irony is again played out for all to see that you are not addressing the fact that the battery performed poorly throughout all of my posts in this thread, that the Autozone test showed it was bad and that your own distributor stated that the battery had a bad cell. You continue to spin what I say and try to sleuth out what distributor to punish. I knew that you would do that so I whited out all of that battery serial number info in my pictures

Just admit that the battery was bad.

[teotwaki]

Funny, I have an Optima charger. It charges at 12 amps when a battery is severely discharged.
Your dealer is giving you bad intel.

12 Amps you say? Wow. That violates what Optima Jim said;

RusherRacing, we do not recommend charging our batteries at a rate higher than 10 amps.[/url]

[OptimaJim]

Again, I'm not trying to “punish” anyone, just help our retail and distribution partners better serve our customers. You don't need to white out any information or take any additional steps to hide the identity of anyone. If you want to provide contact information, we'll reach out to them. If you don't, no big deal.

I can't conclude definitively that someone who used “a huge charger that dumped a ton of amps” into our batteries exceeded our recommended limit of 10 amps, but if they weren't exceeding a 10-amp charge rate with their “huge” charger, it would be the first time I've ever heard anyone refer to 10 amps as “a ton.” The reason we recommend a maximum of 10 amps, is because most chargers that offer rates above 10 amps will go from 10 to 25, 50, or even 200. Because we designed our Digital 1200 chargers specifically for our batteries, we have no problem with charging them at a 12-amp rate with our charger.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.twitter.com/optimabatteries

[jomobco]

Again, I'm not trying to “punish” anyone, just help our retail and distribution partners better serve our customers. You don't need to white out any information or take any additional steps to hide the identity of anyone. If you want to provide contact information, we'll reach out to them. If you don't, no big deal.

I can't conclude definitively that someone who used “a huge charger that dumped a ton of amps” into our batteries exceeded our recommended limit of 10 amps, but if they weren't exceeding a 10-amp charge rate with their “huge” charger, it would be the first time I've ever heard anyone refer to 10 amps as “a ton.” The reason we recommend a maximum of 10 amps, is because most chargers that offer rates above 10 amps will go from 10 to 25, 50, or even 200. Because we designed our Digital 1200 chargers specifically for our batteries, we have no problem with charging them at a 12-amp rate with our charger.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.twitter.com/optimabatteries

Great information. Thank you.