battery options?

[obeygravity]

Time for a new battery. 98 gas L400 auto.
Now for the fun part. Someone in the house (no finger pointing) has a tendency to leave head lights on, interior lights on and or doors ajar. This had lead to at least 4 or 5 total discharges, and subsiquently notable decreased battery power. Happen to have a decent credit at Costco, and been looking at their options. Optima yellow top looks to have good deep cycle capacity. Thoughts out there in Deliland?

[Mr. Flibble]

Deep Cycle is for when you want to drain the battery low - so if you want to run electronics while parked with the engine off? Deep Cycle.

You probably don't want that.

What you want is something with the highest cold cranking amps.

You probably want an optima red top.

Now, if you wanted one house battery to run stuff off of, and one starting battery in a dual battery setup, the. I would go for a red top and a yellow top.

A car's battery is designed to provide a very large amount of current for a short period of time. This surge of current is needed to turn the engine over during starting. Once the engine starts, the alternator provides all the power that the car needs, so a car battery may go through its entire life without ever being drained more than 20 percent of its total capacity. Used in this way, a car battery can last a number of years. To achieve a large amount of current, a car battery uses thin plates in order to increase its surface area.


A deep cycle battery is designed to provide a steady amount of current over a long period of time. A deep cycle battery can provide a surge when needed, but nothing like the surge a car battery can. A deep cycle battery is also designed to be deeply discharged over and over again (something that would ruin a car battery very quickly). To accomplish this, a deep cycle battery uses thicker plates.

[FalcoColumbarius]

Edmonds Batteries in Burnaby. Awesome starters. They ship if you're not in the Lower Mainland.

Falco.