The yellow tops I bought before were all dual-post. I have a mix of vehicle brands incl GM, so it's nice to have the option of being able to move batteries around if the need arises. Or hook a charger up using the top posts if on a GM vehicle.

Ha ha... I've been hearing that for over a dozen yrs. People used to say they were good till the end of the Gates ownership "...they aren't what they used to be." people would say back then. JCI bought them ....then everyone said JCI ruined them, "...they aren't what they used to be." Funny, I got about 14 years out of each one I owned during the JCI years. Now I hear people claim on some forums Clarios ruined them, they aren't what they used to be. Ha ha. I can't keep track which company ACTUALLY ruined Optima batteries. . Did they all ruin Optima? What did they ACTUALLY do to ruin them? It's a pretty straight-forward battery: Lead and acid absorbed in a matt.... wound up tight into a coil then slid into a cylinder in the battery case to keep it from vibrating. Still a L/A battery. Pretty simple tech with a twist. All new materials so they last longer. Not really rocket surgery. If your battery dies early I would send Optima a message.

I always keep my batteries 'up' either with daily driving, or move a float charger around between vehicles I'm not regularly driving. I think the "They're not what they used to be" ...guys are letting them go dead OR...they don't have a charger which will charge them up as well, and they 'think' their relatively new battery is dead (when it's really not). Just speculating.

When I was with JCI, they went around and collected Optima batteries which had been turned in as recycling cores ....for new L/A batteries, and tested/analyzed and dissected a few hundred Optima batteries...just to see. They all have a date code on them. What they discovered was that quite a few were being thrown away which were still good. A lot of 'smart chargers' can't effectively charge them (or couldn't back then). Or bring them up for charging, if their charge gets too low. That was one reason Johnson Controls came out with the Optima battery charger ...which was designed to charge Optima batteries. (The original one still wouldn't bring up a REALLY low battery ...like an old-school analog charger will ..maybe the new one (below) can do it). Once brought up to a couple volts, then switch to the Optima charger. Maybe that is solved with the new Optima charger (IDK).

 

From the Optima Website. They also go on to list ways to bring the battery state of charge up...:

Here's the problem: Most battery chargers have built-in safety features that may prevent chargers from recharging deeply discharged batteries. A traditional battery that's at 10.5 volts or less is seen as defective, having either a short, a bad cell or some other defect. Most analog chargers are binary and are either on or off. If they don’t come on, it may be because the charger thinks the battery is “bad.” Turning on to charge a “bad” battery could create an unsafe scenario. But the fact is that the AGM battery may be just fine; it has simply slipped below the minimum voltage threshold of the charger to turn on, and the charger doesn't know what to do with the battery, so it does nothing.

 

Thanks for sharing this info, I looked up this charger and I found something interesting. It appears that the previous version of this optima digital 1200+ charger was better (digital 1200) as it could charge very low voltage batteries like the analog chargers you mentioned:






This newer 1200+ version makes no mention of charging batteries that have a very low voltage. I do run into this issue from time to time with my vehicles that aren't driven all that often, and my current charger will give an error message that the battery is bad.

I guess I'll look for an old school charger like you mentioned

***Edit***

Just found the specs for the 1200+ lowest it can charge = 2.5V





Since the previous version can do 1.25V, that's likely the route I'll go

 

I've had the older version Optima Charger (same as your pic above) since about a yr after they came out (employee discount) ...so for about 12yrs or so. Overall it's good. It looks high-tech. The design for cable self-storage is brilliant. They paid attention to making a good unit. Below are my dislikes and likes. Bear in mind, some of the quirks on my 'early' unit may have been resolved or improved upon in the yrs after.

1) It won't charge a really dead battery. Maybe they improved that on later production units. I fairly often need to get out my old-school Schumacher to bring the voltage up, then switch over to the Optima charger. That's really annoying. One of my biggest gripes. I put it on, it goes through the analysis routine...then after a while attempting to charge it gives an error. On a battery I know is good, but just went dead overnight. If they needed to put a small old-school transformer in there ...to trickle some juice into a dead battery (then switch over to 'smart' mode), they should have done that. That's a MAJOR overlook by some millennial city-slicker enginers who apparently don't own a bunch of old cars. I've been to the HQ many times, so I know they had a lot of city-slicker non-car-guy engineers and foreigners ...fresh out of school ..over there!! My old-school 'non-smart' transformer-based Schumacher has .3A, 2A, 10A & 50A (start) modes, will bring up any dead battery that I ever put in front of it (unless it was toast from age or internal damage). Start on .3A for a few min, then switch to 2A.... and then to 10A. Or switch over to a so-called 'smart' charger like the Optima once the battery charge is brought 'up'.

I used to get dead batteries from work all the time from service vans ...fairly new Delco and Ford batteries out of fairly new vans ...but just dead from the GPS or cell phone charger. Our service mgr didn't want to screw around with a battery that was a yr or two old and the walmart auto center was literally walking distance from the office. Sometimes he'd ask me if I had time to go get a new battery and install it (he didn't want to mess with them), and I could keep the core. I had a ton of extra (like new) batteries at one time, lol. Gave some away. I'd also get new batteries which were frozen rock-solid too! Let them thaw out for a day, then charge them up. So I've charged up (revived) a lot of 'dead' batteries, and I'd have to start with the ole Schumacher just about 100% of the time. That goes for other 'smart' chargers I've got/had too. They touted that feature when these came out ...but again, maybe they improved that low-voltage feature on later production Optima charger models. Just saying. Otherwise put a small xformer in there and charge another $20 for it.

2) I've had it really HEAT UP a battery while charging. Only a couple times ever. Standard flooded batteries, never an Optima battery. Curiously, not all cells but one or two cells in a battery. I don't know why it did this. Maybe it was trying to knock off scale? Got so hot you almost couldn't touch the cell. This concerned me and I eventually pulled the plug. Once I unhooked and let the battery cool down, the Optima charger charged the battery normally (w/o heating) after that. Like I say, maybe it was trying to revive the cell? The charger is not high enough amps to really overload a battery. It was definitely trying to 'do something'. But still, I generally spot-check a battery that is being charged, a couple times, just in case. Again it could be just my charger...and most likely that was fixed with later production. Or maybe it's doing something it's supposed to, to attempt to revive a bad cell/s. It wasn't the whole battery which was hot, just like one cell or two cells. I don't understand, and at some point I pulled the plug out of safety. And maybe that's why the battery lasted so long afterwards?? IDK. I haven't had it reoccur in many yrs. So it was a couple one-off situations. But still....

3) It's fast ...but it's not. By that I mean, it brings up a battery pretty "fairly" quick. By design it monitors a battery and fluctuates the charge and amp levels. Then it does a finishing charge which tapers down the amps. Thats the scientific approach by the charger. The finish charge takes forever. So the overall process takes a long time. Not a super-big deal and you can pull off the charger anytime. But my ole Schumacher at a steady 10A is faster. But the major downfall of the schumacher is there's no feedback, so you don't really know where you are on the charge spectrum like you do with some smart chargers.

4) A 6V mode would be really nice. I can think of a few times I could have used that. If you're going to produce an all-round premium battery charger, a 6V mode is really a MUST. But then again, Optima doesn't have any 6V batteries that I'm aware of, and the whole point of the charger was to produce a charger optimized for Optima batteries.

What I Do like about the Optima charger:
1) The design is great
2) The quality feels great
3) The gauge is nice
4) It lets you know what's going on in terms of volt and amp output
5) There's a light for low light or nighttime use.
6) There's a USB output (which I don't often use). But nice to know.
7) Will charge multiple batteries
8) Maintainer feature.

The charger I use the most is this Battery Minder:
Had mine for like 13yrs. It's rock solid. Low Amp so it never heats up a battery. I rotate it between vehicles. Long cord. Lights are bright so you can see what's going on across the room or on vehicle 30' outside...just look out the window. It's not for everyone: It's a slow charger ...not the charger to use if you need a quick charge to quick get to work in the morning. It doesn't let you know the state of charge and where it is at in the charge cycle. But it's good to keep batteries 'up'. Shuts off. Charges multiple batteries. I haven't had any issues charging Optima batteries. It WILL also give a 'dead battery' fail if the charge state is too low, ...and I need to dig out the ole Schumacher to bring the batt up in 10 min....then switch over to the Battery Minder. The old Schumacher would be perfect if it had an auto shut-off feature. It sounds like I have a lot of dead batteries. I don't. Rarely do. But like I say I used to get a lot of free dead (but still good) batteries.

That said if you can find a good used older Optima charger definitely a good unit. I think my issues were early version issues. I agree, the brad new design they sort of cheapened the interface.

Always give your FLA battery a good shake before you charge it to mix the electrolyte up, if it's sat a while.

 

I bought the Optima Red dual post battery.
Ik am using it for a couple of weeks now, and I have to say I'm really impressed.
- Car starts right up every timle now.
- It's a sturdy battery.
- It fitment is very good in de rear comartment.

The only thing I wan't to add is some sort of clamp down system. So when I drive over a 'pothole' or something else, it doesn't damage the compartment/door.

 

Not sure which Red Top I bought, but has the bottom ledge for the clamp.

In your case, find yourself a cloth bag same length as the battery. Fill the bag with your much needed roadside tools.
Jamb the bag between the back of the compartment and battery.
Its not going anywhere.