Optima battery defect

["Walter" <Whalt@xxxx>]

I just bought another Optima battery today and got in a long conversation
with the manager at Pep Boys. He warned me not to charge any of the older
Optima batteries at a rate higher than 10 amps. He said that doing so
carries a high risk of causing the battery to fail. (Although they don't
leak, explode or do anything obvious other than quit working.) Has anyone
on the list had an Optima fail yet?

My hunch on this problem is that Optima batteries charge so quickly that
manual charging is going to overcharge an Optima much faster than it would
an old-fashioned lead plate battery.

He said that newer Optima batteries (such as the one I just picked up today)
are made differently so that they are immune to this problem. I asked if
there were any written bulletins from Optima about this, and his answer was
that the manufacture isn't going to announce anything officially. So...
that reduces this whole posting to gossip. Sorry. I asked if there were
any identifiable markings on the battery to indicate if it is a newer or
older version, and he said he knew of none. He suggested that the newer
ones appear to have a darker gray plastic for the lower case, but he wasn't
sure if this has anything to do with it. He told me that Optima has made
several minor improvements with their batteries over time but never
officially announce them.

I realize that this posting has little do to with DeLoreans, but since so
many of us are using Optima batteries that I thought it was worth
mentioning. Considering that the demands that the DeLorean can place on a
battery i.e., high shock & vibration being mounted over the rear suspension,
confined space that limits off-gassing, need for rapid recovery from weak
alternators at idle speed... I still feel that the Optima is the best choice
for the money in our application.

Walt Tampa, FL