anyone have this and how good is it my buddy works at advanceauto and he said they get alot of returns on these batteries is it worth the extra money thx

 

I had a red top in my 83 trans am. Had a ton of stereo equipment with a big alternator. Could run stereo with car off for about 45 mins with that battery. 5 stars from me.

 

My experience with batteries is drawn from servicing industrial and automotive applications. There are only a handful of domestic battery manufacturers. They mfg the large percentage of all the batteries sold to consumers private and commercial. All the different battery labels sold by every auto parts chain and service center contracted by these labels t obuild them a battery to sell. They all want their brand of battery to be manufactured for peanuts so they can make a decent profit when sold to the consumer. This being said the manufacturers don't care who sells their battery and what label is on it when sold. The rub is that usually the manufacturers label is the best quality built battery. Personally I buy Deka! As far as I know that is who builds the OEM batteries for Dodge or at least they did when my truck was new. http://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/200...ima-batteries/
Here is one review for Optima batteries. Good luck with your search. For what it's worth I replaced the OEM battery in my '02 Ram 1500 QC 4x4 last year. Not because of a failure but because I pressed my luck well beyond the normal life expectancy of the battery.

 

I had terrible luck with optima. I had two bad red tops. I did ok with a yellow top in my infrequently driven RX7 Turbo. I've had much better luck in every car with a standard lead acid battery.

 

These were fantastic batteries when Optima was it's own company and manufactured them in the United States, but Optima was bought out by Johnson Controls and the production was moved to Mexico. Quality has gone REALLY DOWNHILL on these batteries.
They used to be THE battery of the Jeep/Off-Road crowd and now the name is TABOO.

Don't buy this battery...

 

I had 3 of the and after about 2 years they wouldnt hold a charge.

 

They weren't worth the money when they were good. You could (and still can) buy two "conventional" batteries for the cost of one Optima, and I'll bet they'll last more than twice as long.

 

I have a yellow top in my truck and love it. I bought because I had 3 sets of lights for night time wheeling. I was running KC daylighters up front, some cheep driving lights mounted under the cab to illuminate the under side of the truck, and a second set mounted in the back to light up directly behind the truck. I can listen to the radio for hours while I work on the truck with no problems. It is a few years old and I think it is a US made battery. I really can't speak for the new batteries.

 

Mine worked great for two years, then one day I stopped to get gas and I went to start my car up and you heard a pop. The battery shorted out out of nowhere. It was completely dead. Luckily 30 seconds later my buddy just happened to stop by the same station to get gas and I got a jump from him. They lost me as a customer. When I got a new battery, the guy told me they stopped selling them there because he was getting so many of them back and it was making them look bad.

 

My local Sam's Club stopped selling them as well, citing WAY TOO MANY customer returns...