I bought a Optima Red top battery sevral years ago and had to replace it so many times and had nothing but problems. I realize if you let a battery discharge too far for too long then it will never be 100% again and in the extream cases it can get to the point where it won't charge but this dam optima would be fully charged and new and be drained to nothing after 1 week of no use with it being completely un-hooked. I'll NEVER buy a Optima battery again! My cheapy looking 3+ year old off brand Rural-King battery in my daily driver silverado will sit over 2 weeks and fire rite up. So my question is, out of all the brands and types what is the best battery money can buy that will last the longest and has the best possible warrenty? Should I buy a bigger battery for more capacity? I have room for a lot more since I relocated mine to the trunk. This battery is going into my carbed turbo 94 mustang that has a few electrical accessories such as water pump, big a1000 fuel pump, fan on high speed setting only, headlights, tailights, guages..... I have the factory 94 mustang alternator which is what a lot of the fox body guys up grade to due to the higher output. I don't know what the exact amprage rating is at on those and I have 2ga wires from the battery to up front and grounds are 2ga. I also have a hair smaller alternator pully that im gonna put on to get a lil more charge out of it. So what battery do I need to buy that will last longer? What are you guys using?

 

I have had my best luck with Motorcraft and Interstate batteries. All depends on who is making them as there are only like 3-4 major battery mfg's in the US and all the batteries you see are sourced from these few people except some one off, craft type batteries that generally suck on their own.

 

I lucked out. I was looking at getting a Duralast gold from AutoZone and they wanted $130. My uncle was moving to another state and stayed here for a couple days and in the back of his loaded down El Camino was a fresh deep cycle Interstate battery. I ended up trading a sbc Edelbrock torker 2 intake that was gave to me for free and a cheapy chrome sbc oil pan for the battery and its worked good so far. I was talking to a guy the other day about Optima batterys and his opinion was that they are bad or at least not 100% when you buy them new from AutoZone because they stay on the shelf too long and slowely discharge. Thats cool that the Interstate batterys are good.

 

the older optimas were fantastic, still have a 10 year old one that works like a dream. but they started making them cheaper and in mexico and the quality just went to S###