300 M Battery Replacement?

You're not breaking anything to me - I'm the guy where I work that replaces the batteries in the UPS's when they fail - and - yes - they certainly do fail with some degree of predictability. Totally different application with totally different operating conditions (my guess is the

99.9%-of-the-time charge mode dries them out - cars don't see that). That's comparing apples and oranges. That would be like me saying that wet batteries are not good because they don't use them in the your UPS's. Different application - different requirements.

"Diesel engines can't be any good because you never see them used in airplanes." :)

I'm still waiting to hear of failed Optimas (in automobiles) besides the one post I saw in years of reading several news groups.

For a wet battery - yes - 10 years is a very long time.

Yes - keep reading.

What you appear to have missed was where I said: "I can say that I would very likely have replaced my original battery with a good AGM battery had it not been as difficult to get to. I bought the Optima specifically based on the 10+ year expectation - not that it's that big of a deal to replace it, but I wanted it to be the last battery I'd buy for that particular car. All my other cars get convenional batteries put back in them when they go bad (and they do go bad - which, again, I can't say about the Optima)."

Nowhere did I say that everyone ought to go out and buy an Optima battery. I said that I saw the value for my particular (as you correctly put it) ass-backwards car, but that conventional batteries go into all my other cars.

I agree: $120 is a lot to pay for a battery.

We're in violent agreement.

Bill Putney (To reply by e-mail, replace the last letter of the alphabet in my address with the letter 'x')