Battery OPTIMA or Varta
I have a red top in my XJ and people say the quality has gone down every time Optima is mentioned but I've had nothing but stellar performance from mine. I was about 7 miles in on a trail 2 weeks ago and my alt died. The battery got me back to the main road before it died enough to not run the engine anymore. A little more than an hour back out and some gnarly rock crawling.
I got 7 years out of my 2010 6V Red Top in the Porsche which I replaced with another and recently purchased a 12V Red Top for the Bus. Battery is more expensive than standard but getting 7+ years vs 4 makes it worth while.
The Optima in my Infiniti is 10 years old and still going strong but I've read so many bad things about them recently, I would be hesitant to buy another one.
My MK7 is still rocking the Varta OEM battery from 2015 since new, and my MK4 has a "duralast" Gold H5 which has a 1/2016 stamp on it and it is still doing fine.
I have a red top in my 4 motion b6 Passat. I have not had any electrical issues. As long as the optima matches or exceeds the oem battery cca you’ll be fine.
So maybe your dealer does but we receive ours from interstate and have Varta branding on them.
We have one in our 2007 and it has been going strong for almost 7 years.
Had an Optima once. It was fine til it died, and it died hard. These days I stick with Interstate blemished units, since you can get them with cosmetic blems for about $35 from your local dealer. Cable wise, I updated them with the ones from a Mk3 VR6. I like the connectors better. Cables seem to be identical otherwise. Thicker alternator wire from Autotech is a must.
Once Johnson Controls bought them, they've become worse and worse.
My optima failed after 1.5 years
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