Battery replacement Gen4

[Getnlwr]

Knowing what I know now... if I have to replace my battery again I'll be getting the group 78 battery it's the same as the 34 except side posts. Replace the ground cable and take the adapter off the positive that came on the car and it would be safer overall than the group 34. Its much closer than I expected.

Sorry to say it... this is a shitty design. All it would take is bending that cover panel and you would have a really bad problem very quickly.

[MJBCarmel]

Thanks Steve..helpful information. See that this chain is a few years past., still recommend the above for a Gen 4? Much appreciation.

[Steve M]

I went with a Duracell AGM the last time I needed to replace the battery in my '08 (that was back in 2018). It has held up just fine so far, but the car is always on a Battery Tender when it isn't being driven.

I also redid the terminals last year to address the issue noted earlier in this thread where the terminals can possibly come into contact with the cover. I covered that in this thread:

https://driveviper.com/forums/thread...tery-Terminals

[ChargerMan426]

What made you not like Optima anymore? Thats all I've used for years....granted now that I think about it, its been like 4 or 5 years since I needed a battery.

[Steve M]

What made you not like Optima anymore? Thats all I've used for years....granted now that I think about it, its been like 4 or 5 years since I needed a battery.

For me, it was two things:

1. Back in the early to mid-2000s, Optima moved their manufacturing from Colorado to Mexico. During that transition, their QC went to crap, and they had a large run of batteries that didn't hold up. I'm sure that's since been fixed, but combined with #2...
2. The competition caught up, if not surpassed Optima's quality during that same time. At that point, you could go buy a Sears DieHard Platinum AGM (no longer made) that was a very, very high quality battery - arguably better than Optima at that time.

There are only a couple of battery manufacturers left these days: Johnson Controls and Exide. Pretty much all batteries you see on store shelves are either Exide or Johnson batteries with whatever color/sticker the retail store puts on them. From a quick Google search, it looks like Optima is made by Johnson Controls - they didn't start off that way though. Things change...companies that start out strong usually get bought out at some point. The corporation that does the buying out sometimes relies on the reputation built by the original company, but the penny pinchers usually win out in the end.