Battery Recommendations

Has anyone noticed the new shape of the yellow top Optima? It appears they are moving away from the rolled lead and AGM construction to the more conventional stacked plate design. Most don't know but the Optima was designed by the same folks that designed the Odyssey back when the equipment for manufacturing batteries was NOT good enough to deal with the very soft pure lead plates needed for high performance batteries. They could however, roll the lead and agm into the individual cells without damage so they came up with a rolled cell design and case.

As processes improved, they were able to stack the flat plates and agm to increase density in the same footprint. When they perfected the process and design, they approached Optima and told them they had a much better method for making a battery and it was a much better battery with higher power density in the same footprint simply due to moving away from the space inefficiency of cylinders stacked together and the dead spaces between them. Optima already had a lot invested in their marketing around the 6 pack design and declined.

They shopped around and were able to sell the design to a company called Black Panther who later went on to become Odyssey.

There is some paraphrasing in there since I had that conversation with the designer 17 years ago but that is about the gist of it.
 
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That suggests an entirely different battery. I wonder how it compares to their recent offerings as far as reliability.
 
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That's encouraging to see Optima moving forward with that stacked plate design, maybe they can fix their reputation if they also build it with good quality.
 
I had an Odyssey in my JK, no complaints, bought it cause I needed a new battery and heard they were great. Had it in there for two years before I parted with the JK.

About a year ago needed to replace the TJ battery. It was dead in a parking lot and I didn't know anywhere that sold Odyssey. After a slick talk from a salesman at Batteries Plus I bought an X2Power battery. It's also an AGM stacked plate design, same specifications as the Odyssey I would need for the TJ as well but with a five year warranty to the four year warranty of the Odyssey.

I've heard they're just rebranded Northstar batteries though but for the price and the "I need it right now" requirement plus a five year warranty I was about as comfortable making an uninformed decision as I could be... and I like to thoroughly research any purchase, especially for a daily driver like the TJ.

Well a year on in and no complaints yet. Battery seems to be working perfect and no acid leaks or anything. Short of running a battery test on it, of which I have no reason to, there's not much to say about it. I'll just have to see if it stands the test of time. If it goes five years I'll be thoroughly satisfied.
 
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