Battery OPTIMA or Bosch

I bought a red top used off craigslist over 3years ago and it's still great.

A few months ago I replaced the autozone battery with an optima red top. I've left the lights on twice for over half the day and the car still started right up. I'm really impressed with how strong the red top cranks.

I use Red top Optima batteries in all my cars, I truly hate flooded lead acid batteries as they will leak at sometime in their life.

I run a Optima yellow top as well, but mine fits in just like stock.

I have an optima yellow top in mine.

I had an Optima I took out of my Crew Cab Dually, probably two years old (used for my car stereo). It sat in my garage for a year. Then I needed a battery for my 1/2 ton truck. I charged the Optima and installed it. I ran it for three years without problems. Sold the truck with the battery still in it.

Absolutely YES you should buy the optima RED top 6 volt batteries instead of the dealer yellow top batteries. There is virtually NO difference between the RED top optima battery and the dealer yellow top optima battery that the dealer sells. Both are made by optima.

So, I replaced it with a new optima battery anyways. Still have the issue.... Moved onto the car alternator. Tested it with my DVOM and it was giving out 13.7V at idle.

Optima batteries are not as good as they first were. Optima batteries have gone down in quality after being bought out, after Johnson Controls bought them and moved production to Mexico.

I had an Optima that behaved like this and took it back to AutoZone, they swapped it out without much hassle.