C4 Battery

Depending on your individual situation and any other vehicles that you own, you may want to consider purchasing batteries that can (if possible) be a common size which will allow you to rotate them in other vehicles when your vette is in storage for the winter. This can allow the batteries to remain in normal use, which may extend their life. Some pickups can be equipped with dual battery boxes which will give you added capacity in the winter when you need it most.

IMHO batteries never seem to last much over 5 years no matter how much (or how little) they are used. They can be used longer than that but do lose reliability especially in cold weather.

My Interstate battery is going on 4 years. I expect car batteries to last roughly 6-7 years.

I went to battery hell and back with the useless Delco AGM until I got rid of it and replaced it with a Wall Mart Everstart. It has been in my

01 C5 for two years with NO problems at all. The best thing about buying a battery from Wall Mart is they are everywhere and open 24 hours a day, 7 days each week. The Everstart has more cranking amps than Delco and a much better warranty.

I will never use anything but a Wall Mart battery unless I buy a new car with some useless company brand battery.

I put an Optima into my 1993. I had trouble getting it to fit. I contacted the company, but they didn't respond to my emails for weeks. I ended up cutting off the top post to make it fit. I ended up replacing it a short time later when it died. After that, they responded that the battery would not fit in a Corvette. Don't waste your money.

Jim

The Optima story: Back in 2002 I got one of the early Optima red-tops and stuck it in my '89. Had to remove a spacer from the bottom and go through the usual business with the gill panel to access the battery tray. Great battery--lotsa cranking amps quick starts etc. Holds up well with the static drain of the analog stuff in the C4 electrical system--goes a month of no-starts without attention. After 5 years it responds to occasional abuse from a home-garage charger.

Pimped the battery here. Several guys bought and a few, like Jim found that Optima had changed the red-top. No spacer on the bottom, battery too tall to clear the cruise control servo bracket. Jim wasn't the only one who amputated the top posts. *Don't buy Optima for a C4!*

I warrantied out the Delco in my C5 (side post failure) for another Delco -- bad move -- only took a moderate hosing on the pro-rate but had to swap out the new batt as it wasn't holding a charge. *Third* Delco in that car (an '02) is about 6 months old. OK but, *Don't buy Delco !*

Since all we are doing is renting lead from these clowns, go with the best ratio of cranking amps to dollars and ignore warranty. Wal-Mart would work for me -- or Interstate, or Everlast, or Everready etc.

-- pj

I also have no luck with Optima batteries. They have all the money they'll ever see from me. Been through around seven of them. If they go all the way dead, they stay dead. My best service has been with Interstate batteries. Years ago Delco batteries were hard to beat, Now they last two years and you get to fight for a warranty replacement.

Al

Sorry about the previous non-post. I replaced the Delco with an Interstate battery and it has caused no issues, and at times over the winter it sat several weeks without a startup.

AJM '93 Ruby coupe, 6 sp (both tops)

note; the use of a battery tender will help any battery last about

4 times longer. g'day

We had an old fart in town (what am I saying), that used to take a dead battery and trickle charge it all night and then dead short the terminals with a bar of steel until it was red hot. Then he would hit it with a high amperage charger until it held 13+ volts and re-sell it. Most would work as long as some new ones. The way his place was eat up with acid my guess is some of them exploded and maybe he put a fresh batch in some of them to get them to work.

Just down the street was another old fart doing rebuilds on generators and alternators. Both were much needed back the 50s and 60s as it seemed like I was always fixing some body's car that need one or the other.

Sadly I don't do much of that kind of fixing anymore as most of those folks are gone. Talk about old farts....

South of the Border, down Mexico way, they've got it down to a science:

Dump the old acid into a crock and let it settle. Run two or three rinses of water through the battery and clean the outside. Pour the acid back in and throw a charge on it. Plenty of these for 10 bucks...5 bucks if you bargain.

Oh yeah, the rinse water flows down the gutter, into the TJ river, across the border and your tax dollars work to clean up the mess.

-- PJ

ROFL. Basically, it works. What screws up a battery are the deposits on the plates. Heating the plates to flake it off or the bouncing it around and flushing it out will put new life in them by having clean plates again. One of the other things that kill a battery is junk in the bottom shorting the plates together. Dump that out and you get more life.

The DieHard in my '87 was installed in about '92 and got replaced a couple of years ago. This is a VERY occasionally driven car (29K miles now,

21K in '95). It lives on a Schumacher smart charger when it's in the garage. Keep it on a good smart charger, use a good battery, and don't worry about it.

disconnected the float charger and forgot about it. Took a

make an application for the C4. Closest is their

where the posts are (it has posts and side mounts)

Vettes, but they don't anymore (why?). Anybody using one

Thanks in advance for any help.

you may want to consider purchasing batteries that can

vehicles when your vette is in storage for the winter.

life. Some pickups can be equipped with dual battery

little) they are used. They can be used longer