Battery OPTIMA or Bosch

Bought the Optima, not yet installed. Have had good luck with them, 5 yrs or more each,

My last experience from them was a yellow top from 2015 that I got for my '01 Mustang. Had it for 4+ years starting up just fine and survived despite having been drained dead 5 times or so. Sold the car before the battery died.

I had one. It lasted a good seven years. Still good quality, its worth it if you can swing the price.

My red top from 08/09 finally let go last week it has already been replaced by another red top. Highly recommended.

I remember this very interesting post a couple years back regarding AGM batteries and their charging requirements: On the one vehicle that I modified the charging circuit to run at 14.7V I have an Optima Redtop battery in it that has never been replaced. And this includes repeated discharges to near 0% SOC when the sales people at the tradeshows forget to turn the vehicle off after the show.

I always hear people talk about issues with newer Optimas but my old REDTOP is going on 13 years old and still going strong.

Some BOSCH batteries used on VW cars last around 2 years or a bit more but cost appropriately.

I've been seeing the same issue with batteries branded under Bosch and Champion. On several cars, I rarely had to replace batteries, now it seems like it is a 1-2 year thing on any battery. They are dying faster without ability to recharge. I just posted in the Scirocco forums that my 3 year warrantied Bosch battery is no longer holding a charge and its not even 11 months since I bought it. Glad to know that I'm not alone in seeing that engineered battery obsolescence seems to have arrived.

Optima are junk now as well since they were bought out a few years ago.

Optima has been garbage for about a decade now, ever since they were bought out and production moved out of the country. Quality immediately took a huge dive.