DocPro

I like your picture of that well known Columbian entrepreneur. Didn't realize he was a Porschephile!

IXLR8

If anyone is getting that, that is a short life considering I got 16 and 14 years from a plain old "factory installed OEM" flooded lead acid battery.

So much for high-tech.

silver_tt

There are many factors that can affect the lifespan of a lead acid battery including the manufacturing process and operating temperatures the battery will see over its lifetime. But even aside from deep cycling there is no question that a good quality AGM (like an Optima) is superior to a traditional lead acid battery.

IXLR8

The issue with VRLA batteries is, they cannot be maintained, other than keeping them charged. If for some reason they are overcharged due to a charging system that does not have the correct temperature compensation, good bye AGM or GEL. I have read about a lot of Optima and other VRLA batteries that fail within a couple of years. I'll let you know how the AGM in my 991.1 and BMW motorcycle do, if they last as long as my FLA battery.

silver_tt

Awesome, thank you, always love data points. FWIW, I put a Optima Yellow Top DH8 in my 2014 Audi Q5 2.0T last summer to replace the original Varta (which is an excellent AGM battery btw). The original was ok and I wasn't having any problems but when I load tested it it was on the weaker side and I don't like to stretch batteries on a grocery getter with my wife and kids in the car. I'm exactly one year in with it and it has been perfect so far -- even when my kids have left the lights on in the car all night. I pair it with my CTek 7002. My only recommendation would be to buy it online or if you get it local be sure to check the manufacture date. I was able to use a $50 coupon at Advance Auto Parts and the one I got in the store ended up being 2 years old and they had ripped the born on date off of it but I was able to decode it using the sticker at home. So I returned it immediately. When I placed the same order from them online I saw it shipped the same day from a regional massive warehouse that presumably has a ton of inventory and when I checked the date on that one it had been made in the past month -- very new. It was packaged well.

You can take this for what it's worth but I have a very good friend who owned a racing shop (mostly specializing in Porsche) for many, many years that recently retired. He installed thousands upon thousands of Optimas and told me they last forever and are extremely reliable. He's a good friend of mine and has no reason not to be truthful but has seen tons and tons of data points on this. When I was buying my Optima last summer I saw a lot of negative sentiment about the company after they moved production to Mexico. From what I can see people's complains about the batteries after moving to Mexico are based more on racism or protectionism than actually having any merit or proof that the product is now of lesser quality.

IXLR8

I haven't really given you any yet. I worked for the defense department in a lab, the last 5 or so years in a battery lab testing batteries and battery chargers. You gotta love the promises battery charger companies make on their packaging. I personally have a few battery chargers: a few CTEK chargers (nothing to write home about, BTW), a few Optimate chargers, a YUASA, a couple of Harbor Freight chargers, all built to a price point and nothing special as I have run my personal Madgetech data logger on a few of them. Any charger provided it does not overcharge the battery (you can overcharge a FLA to equalize the cells) is better than not using a charger at all. The good charger that I tested all aspects of was the Xantrex TrueCharge 2. A bit pricey, so I bought a Pro-Logix PL2320 upon the recommendation of my coworkers in the lab (I retired years ago).

Well I hope so as it is only a year old. I think you need to give the kids a "check list". We use them in aircraft.

By the way, this is where your hard earned tax dollars go. A slew of AGM batteries, mostly 6T AGM batteries. Of course the heat in the desert and sticking them in vehicles with charging systems not designed for an AGM probably didn't help.

silver_tt

My kids are 4 and 6 so I'm not sure a checklist is going to get me too far. I have been stuck in a blizzard in the middle of nowhere when I had a battery go out. An experience like that will make you think twice about trying to stretch a battery to save what is basically nothing. IMHO that's just prudent risk management.

That was a thanks in advance. The CTek 7002 is a great charger IMHO. I got it for ~$80 in one of those Black Friday type of sales in 2017 (that's actually my second one, the first one I purchased maybe 10-15 years ago). It pretty much does everything you could ask and is a very "smart" device. Definitely a must have tool if you ask me (other products for the same price may also be good I just don't have experience with them).....

Antigravity

Well, damn, that is quite incredible and awesome. But I assume that was before the battery companies figured out the built-in obsolescence of making batteries last about 4 years in general, and making thinner battery plates and interconnectors and used lower quality materials compared to prior manufacturing processes.
Either way you are maintaining your batteries correctly if you getting that kind of usage even on older batteries. The average on a Modern AGM is roughly 3-5 years nowadays, but there are many factors such as heat, if the owner let the battery deeply discharge, the fact that modern cars use start stop systems that run the battery at a lower state of charge and they are not charged as often with the modern smart alternators.
This is not me just saying that, this is from the thousands of calls we receive each year regarding replacing Lead/Acid Batteries, the Tradeshows we attend and talk to people about the lifespan of their batteries, but even more so on the forums such as Rennlist where we can see every day the Porsches that start throwing flags due to batteries getting faulty and run down, and the constant posts each day.

IXLR8

They were both Panasonic batteries fitted to new made-in-Japan vehicles. Unfortunately you could not get them in the NA aftermarket.

silver_tt

Ya, this is true of many batteries. You cannot get the Varta AGM that was put into my vehicle when it was assembled in Ingolstadt Germany back state-side here in the USA. I checked with the local Porsche/Audi dealer first to see what they sold customers as the "OE" battery and it was just a Interstate AGM which they mark up a lot, of course.

IXLR8

Same for the Porsche Moll-Kamina battery that I replaced with an East Penn battery. It was 100% identical as far as the case was concerned, except it was black and not white. Could have been made in Germany and re-labelled or made in the US with permission from Moll-Kamina. Anyway, they last so I am not worried.

Also our 911s have a rear weight bias. Why make it worse by installing a lighter battery in the front.

There are only so many battery manufacturers and others are owned by companies like Johnson Controls, etc.

silver_tt

Agree on all accounts.

Antigravity

Well, many argue lightweight is the holy grail of performance, and to lose weight is tremendously expensive, but beneficial. Also if you serious about tracking you can do a header kit and lose another roughly 20 lbs, to the rear. But the rear weigh bias is not everything with weight loss. Consider this fact, as speed goes up the force required to stop it exponentially increases....So that 35 pounds of weight you saved going with a Lithium Battery does absolutely assist in reducing the forces required to stop a car.

For example, say someone tosses you a 35 pound mass of weight. lets say a bag of sand. you catch it and it fairly heavy, now speed that 35 pound bag of sand up to 30mph.... it would basically kill you if you tried to catch it, and requires alot of force to stop it... but if you go to 60MPH that force it now exponentially higher and would probably cut you in half, now at 100MPH again exponentially higher and massive forces are required to stop that 35lbs of weight. So now translate that into braking force required, that 35lbs of weight reduction has saved an incredible amount of energy required for braking.

Anyway there are many ways to dissect this, and I don't want to argue this, but that massive weight loses can indeed be exceptionally beneficial and a Lithium Battery is the least expensive and easiest way to drop 35 lbs in 15 minutes of any product available. Now add the fact that for a fraction of the cost of a few quality Carbon Fiber bits you can get a battery that drops 35 lbs in a 15 minute DIY simple installation, but also offers built- in wireless-jump-starting, which means you will never get stranded with a dead battery, never be locked out of your frunk, or be stuck messing around connecting to your fuse panel or a jump-starter, plus you get a substantially longer lifespan, then it really does make sense for many Car owners who like these features. So the benefits absolutely outweigh most any other factors.

Last, consider that Porsche also just installed Lithium Batteries into their latest models cars, so this is the next wave of technology and offers serious benefits, The great thing is we all have options for this technology now, and some love these features others may not feel they need them. Irrespective, we do offer this level of tech now for those who are interested and we utterly respect that others may not care about it.

IXLR8

As Colin Chapman would say.

But lets face it, anything over 2000 pounds is heavy and many would argue that is too much. If I was in national competitive racing with money waiting for me at the finish line, sure. Otherwise I doubt 40 pounds will make anyone quicker than a few fractions of a second per lap on a DE day. People are free to spend their money how they choose. How the hell did this low paid "tech" (not an engineer, doctor, attorney or business owner) afford a new GTS?

asellus

Yeah, I got around 16 or 17 years from a factory AGM. It was also a car that actually turned off when you turned the key off. The 90s were a wonderful time.

But that's also kind of apples to oranges here, which I'm sure you understand.