i've heard good things about kinetik batteries.
http://www.kinetikaudio.com/powercells.asp

 

Good thread guys! The battery in the LS just died (Autolite 96M) and remembering past posts about Optima I was going to get one...this saved me the trouble.

 

So what did you replace it with?

 

i just picked up an optima (redtop)

oh well, to each his own

 

Im running the Stinger SP1700, with no capacitors on a 4000 watt system. No problems at all...only downfall is the price

 

An Exide Nascar series.

It was the only top offering from Kragen so it was a limited choice. My past Exide Nascar battery was really good. The alternator died and it managed to still run the car for 2+ hours. After that deep discharge, the battery still went beyond term to about 78 months.

The first gal helping me at Kragen was she charged the battery and said it was good. 12.8V, 789 CCA. I told her, no alternator problem, no other devices left on to drain the battery, the battery was dead. She talked to me like I don't know my car. I gave her the benefit of the doubt even though and took the "charged" battery back with me. Back in the car...nada. There wasn't enough oompf left in it to even move the steering wheel or get the courtesy lights on. I took it back.

Asked the other counter guy to test it again...12.1V and 625 CCA. This was in a span of 20 minutes it had dropped. Even he realized it wasn't a good battery even though the tester stated otherwise.

 

They have a ****ty tester - it's not able to pull the surface charge off a battery... We have a small Interstate battery tester that is quite accurate, unless the battery has just come off the charger, in which case, something like your experience happens (although we know better) Our main electrical system tester is an Autometer unit that recognizes that a battery has just been charged, and puts a load on the battery to remove the surface charge... Then it goes and tests the battery, both the way the Interstate tester does, and also by putting a 200 amp load on the battery and watching voltage...

 

i'm glad i ran into this thread. I had an optima yellowtop in my old car (98 altima) that had a full system in it. it lasted a good ~5 years with no issues. But i also didn't push the system hard very often and didn't run it much when the car was off.

That's too bad optima has gone downhill. I will be looking into the diehard battery mentioned in this thread. Great battery with the convienance of Sears is a big plus!!