After a bit of googling I found a battery manufacturers list. http://www.jgdarden.com/batteryfaq/batbrand.htm

 

Thats the list I have saved somewhere. Good find.

 

jkeaton, thanks for the welcome, although I've lurked on this site for several years. VWandDodge, any supplier list someone finds is likely to be outdated, including the list itate posted. Suppliers are in a constant state of flux, as various contracts are always coming up for renewal. Even though some people are convinced a retailer may have switched from one supplier to another for quality reasons, there are a wide variety of reasons, which rarely have anything to do with product quality. One example would be retailers who use multiple suppliers, depending on the area of the country of their stores.

h3lzsn1p3r, I'm glad to hear your RedTop has served you well. We're always looking for stories like your's for our traveling Wall of Power displays. If the folks that run that display like your story enough, they'll swap out your current battery for a brand-new one. You can submit your story here.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

 

^^ Understood, Jim.

BTW - Perchance would Optima have a battery that will fit the box on my 1949 Allis Chalmers WD? I believe it's a Group 26.

 

Optima Jim is correct when he says one retailer may have the battery Mfg. by several companies, I have worked at a Battery Plant for 15+ yrs. and now we make only Large Uninteruppted Power Suppy batteries but before we were bought out by the present company were were owned by Yuasa and in the last stages of the battery process it was tested, labeled and packaged for shipment and I saw several different labels going on the battery besides the Yuasa label. I am assuming they were contracted, we did make some M/C batteries for Harley Davidson for awhile but again it must have been a contract since it was only for a period then it stopped. FYI I am running a Redtop Optima in my Dodge and a Enersys Odyssey in my M/C which is made by our company in Missouri.

 

VWandDodge, we do not have an exact fit replacement for the Group 26, although a different size may fit in an application that we would consider to be a custom fitment.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries, Inc.
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries

 

Optima Red Top for me any day. I have one in my TVR Cerbera... first battery that worked longer than a year in that energy-eating monster.

Red Top was the first thing I bought for my V10 Ram.

 

Both my D34-78 Yellow top Optima's are great in my trucks.

 

As we just have Jim online here: Would you recommend trickle chargers being used regularly with the Optima?

 

Since Optima sold out to Johnson Controls there have been MANY, MANY posts across various forums as to a severe drop in quality.

My local Sam's Club has stopped selling Optima batteries due to a high return rate.

I've owned Optima's in the past and they performed very well, but my last one took a dump at barely over a year with THE SAME use and care as my older one had that lasted eight years.

Optima today is NOT the Optima of 10 years ago.

I hate to openly bash a product, especially when a representative of that product makes an effort to reply to members on a forum BUT I'd feel worse not posting my personal experience and what I've been reading on various other forums (mainly Jeep and off-road forums) over the past few years.
Most of us work hard for our money and it wouldn't be right if someone spent top dollar on a product just to have to replace WAY before it's expected lifetime. What I'm seeing is that it's sadly the case with what used to be a high quality product...