I bought a yellow-top optima gel cell from les schwab in Orchards Washington. They highly recommended it and so did everyone else I talked to at the time. I'm sure they're pretty good batteries but apparently I got a bad one. I bought mine for a vintage 87 RX-7 with less than 64k original miles on it. I purchased the car as an investment (you rotary heads can appreciate that) and I wanted the nicest battery available and paid over $200 dollars for it. I drove the car 1 - 2 times a month to work and back and kept it garaged (heated all year around) and after 22 months the battery developed a short in one of the cells. I took it back to les schwab and the only thing they would offer me was a $79 dollar credit. On a battery that I expected would last several years I figured I had the real deal. Turned out I had to take it in the shorts because les schwab insisted that the car sat too long and that's what caused the short. On the 1 - 2 times per month that I drive the RX7, the car gets started 4x each day (includes lunch-trip) and is driven 60 miles round-trip. Anyway, I obviously feel ripped off. ...and les schwab has crappy customer service! They told me that this rarely ever happens. If that's so, why didn't they just give me a new optima battery and send the bad one back to the manufacturer? I'll never buy one again after that experience and I will tell everyone I know the same story!
- posted
16 years ago