My Optima score card:
Blue top: born 1-11: still used in our boat during the summer and race trailer in the winter to run the winch and cool down the racecar.

Red top 1: born 3-13: in my daily driven 96 Jeep XJ. Survives through some incredible under hood temps during the summer months. Still has OE battery cables.

Red top 2 & 3: born 2-18 and 2-19. The 18 came from my daughters 200 when she traded it in. My experiment with Duracell AGM batteries failed after 2 years in my 01 Dodge CTD pickup (Was looking for a more affordable AGM = fail! Got money back as they were 3yr battery). I bought another red top in 19 to pair up with the 18. Probably my third set of batteries in that vehicle in 20 years, and still sports the OE battery cables as well.

Red top 4: born 4-20. That ones in the race car

My “deal” with optima is this: zero acid/ corrosion damage in any of my vehicles. Avg life of a battery in the desert SW is 2 years. I’ve exceeded that every time by at least 3x. Do I hate paying for them? Uhhhh….. YEAH! abhorrently expensive!! On the other hand I’ve seen what wet cell batteries do out here and have made a ton of money repairing damage from them.

My hatred for batteries is only overshadowed by tires

I’ve moved on to Odyssey. Will take a few years to know how it goes. Buy at autozone to get the warranty handled easier.

The Yellow top in my Barracuda actually had a seal fail at the post and corroded my negative terminal. I was mad when I opened the box and saw that(i only open that box once or twice a year). It was ten years old and it still worked fine but I went ahead and replaced it, a friend still uses it on his trailer.

I am in the battery business and if I see trouble from optima's its usually a care issue like lack of use or improper charging. Everyone that brings one in for warranty usually has some crazy story to go with why its dead then I charge it up for them and its just fine lol. We usually sell a few thousand a year and warranty a few at most and of what we warranty most are not actually bad and we sell them as used. I had one of my own go bad last year but I technically killed it, dome lights were left on in my jeep and it sat for weeks and the battery was hammer dead, it charged back up but was never right again.

For the person who moved to Odyssey if you are having bad luck with Optima I would expect the same with that brand also. We sell some products by Enersys(makes Odyssey and originally designed optima) and I run Optima in all my vehicles from experience. If optima doesn't make a fit for it I will use a standard flat plate AGM battery from Interstate.

Last thing I highly recommend the Optima Brand of charger, I have the small 4 amp one and it is a great charger/maintainer. $100 well spent.