Thinking about selling my mav...

Well, got motivated to drive it over and get fresh inspection sticker (expired in July) and the battery was dead. Again. Remember a couple months back I had a dead Optima thread going? Well, it had the 2A trickle on it since, and was still dead when I tried to start it today.

So, off to O'Reilly, and brand new Red Top FREE!!! Well, I paid $200 for the first one, with 3 year free replacement...

 

Did you 2A trickle charger have an auto shutoff? 2A sounds like a lot of trickle. I like the Battery Minder with RF de-sulfication (if that's the right word).

 

It is a pretty high-dollar computerized trickle charger. Not an old Sears machine.

Didn't matter. Battery has been dead since September, no matter how I tried to charge it. I have a 130A alternator and even after an hour of driving, it would not start immediately after shutting it down.

O'Reilly confirmed it was dead, and gave me a new one.

 

I like it looks good!!

 

Good to see you moving on with the car.

I seem to have read that Optimas need to have a special set-up to bring them back if really drained ... something like a fresh battery in parallel with the charger and the Optima. Otherwise, they will never take the charge.

Edit ... found this ... http://www.optimabatteries.com/product_support/resuscitating_agmbattery.php

 

If I would have seen that before I swapped, you know I would have tried that.

But they say "deeply discharged" and mine was stuck around 10.4 volts. Would that be considered "deeply discharged"?

 

good info....
but i have killed my Optima to the bone 3 times and brought it back with a reg. car charger...

 

That Optima article alluded to that a lot of chargers have a circuitry in them that will cut them off at 10 or so volts, because they "know better" than to charge a fried battery. Optimas can drop below that and be brought back. You need the other battery in parallel to trick the charger into working again.