Optima's Dead ?

[fla.sailor]

folks,

Since we're heading the the islands this spring, I took a proactive approach on our 5 year old optimas. I brought the batts to an auto parts store to have them tested under 'load' and yup - the guy tells me they're bad....

So, though they 'seem' to work fine (I regularly use and charge them & they float at 13.3v), just how accurate is the load test part stores perform???

thanks!
-dennis

[delmarrey]

Loads tests are fairly accurate. If the voltage starts to drop in less then a minute, the cells are thin and will not last too much longer.

If the batts are more then two years old I would not depend on them for a long trip. It's cheap insurance just to replace them. Sell'm to one of your buddies that stays at the dock most of the time.