26MartiniMan

Help what batteries should I go with I am restoring a 79 Martini group 27 or Optima's I am gonna buy billet boxes and I dont know what to go with gimme some intel

SDFever

The only battery in your size range that is still made in USA is East Penn (lead acid).

Interstate is made by Johnson Controls and shipped out of Mexico.

I favored Optima for a long time. Spent some money with them... My experience is that they never seem to "fully" come back after a deep discharge. In other words, it takes less time to kill one after it's been killed the first time.

I have no experience with Walmart Batteries and the Energizer type stuff.

mike tkach

iTrader: (3)

optima,they take the beating and last the longest.

Young Performance

I personally can not stand Optima's and refuse to use them. I have yet to see one last more than a year.
I have been using Odyssey batteries for a few years now and have not had a problem. I absolutely love them. They are not cheap though. A group 27 Odyssey will run almost $300. However, you will not be dissappointed and will have it for a long time.
Eddie

SeaDated

I put Optima Batteries in my 32 Fountain. I sold the boat after 5 years and they never failed me. The boat was bought by a guy that had me do all the work to it for him and I did that for 3 more years and the optimas were still working fine. I put the larger optima batteries in my 38 Fountain and they have four years on them now and all is well. I like them!

outriggers

I have had the same experiance as Eddie. I haven't used a Odyssey in a boat yet, but in other stuff they have been great. Doug

Young Performance

I'm not sure why I (and every customer that has them) have had such bad luck with them. Seriously, I have not seen one go past one year. Had one customer with trip Merc outboards and a genset, so he had 4 optimas. We had to change them out every year, if they lasted that long. After 3 years, he finally had enough and ditched them. He went through like 14 batteries. We put Odysseys in it and that was the end of it. I just don't get it.
I'll tell you what sold me on the Odyssey's. We had a small one that was for a Yamaha Rhino/4 wheeler. I was talking with a rep about the cranking amps and reserve minutes and told me that battery was strong enough to start my Dodge diesel (which has 2 batteries). We took him up on it and disconnected the 2 batteries and hooked up the one little Odyssey. It sure started the truck. It didn't spin it as fast, but the battery would fit in the palm of my hand. That sold me and I haven't used anything else since.
Eddie

Jeffro2525

I'm a NAPA dealer and it sure seems like I warranty a lot of Optima's! And the story seems to be that most of them are from part time vehicle's=(boats and hotrods)

tieboy

I had 2 optima batteries in my checkmate for over 7 years with a stereo system that had over 1500 watts of amp power, I never had any problems with them but after a hard weekend of beating the ***t out of them I always put a 2 amp charger on each for 24 hours, they always came back up and never left me stranded. The only problem was that my alternater could never keep up with the power that I needed

aTX427

Odessy if you have the money, otherwise Interstate Megatron.