The 'ol Die Hard in my Cherokee gave up the ghost, time to upgrade. I canget a 1000CCA standard battery from Les Schwab for about 100 bux. Is itworth the extra 60 for an Optima? If I get the Optima, which is best? Redtop? Blue top? Yellow top?Vehicle is 89 Cherokee 4.0, Warn m8000 winch, 400watt audio amp, no auxlighting but I will be adding some.Thanks,Carl

With your winch, Optima's Blue Top or Yellow Top deep-cycle/starting batteries would be a good choice, the Red Top would not since Optima will not warranty it if a winch is connected to it. The Blue Top is exactly the same as the Yellow Top internally and only varies by the external case color and connectors. The extra top post on the Blue Top is suitable for connecting a winch to, a winch cannot be connected to the side posts that come on the Yellow Top since they cannot handle the amount of current a winch can draw (in excess of 400 amperes). I'm real happy with my two year old second Yellow Top, my first Yellow Top lasted around five years with lots of winching under its belt before I replaced it just to make sure it didn't strand me in the middle of the desert.JerryCarl Saiyed wrote:

Which battery?

Jan 24, 2005 24 Replies

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Jerry Bransford 21 years ago

I kept everything wired normally and wired my winch to the undersized side posts. What I added to prevent my winch from melting the internal side post connections was to make and install pair of external battery-connector gauge size jumpers that connect from the side posts where the winch is connected to to the top posts. They are more than big enough to carry the amperage from the winch to the top posts that can handle the winch's amperage load. The jumpers are connected in parallel to the internal connections to the side posts.

Jerry

Endo wrote:

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Carl Saiyed 21 years ago

Thanks, Jim.

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Markansas 21 years ago

I had a red top Optima that came in a dodge truck, bought truck used in

2001, sold it last year, battery never failed me, even after 2 seperate occasions when truck sat for 2 months straight.

fired up just as if I had parked it the day before.

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JimG 21 years ago

My 4 year old Delco in my Chevy does that.

JimG

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bizbee 21 years ago

On Sun, 23 Jan 2005 21:35:58 -0800 in , "Carl Saiyed" graced the world with this thought:

I just changed out my red top Optima, eleven years of near daily use, recharged it about five times before it got to the point were the charge wouldn't hold for more than a week or so.

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