I put a red top Optima in my Scarab 2 years ago as a starting battery. It would not start,checked terminals every which way. Turned out the battery was N/G. The next one has lasted till now,cranks slow. Took it back to the distributor, checked it, N/G. I was then told there was a bad bunch of optimas manufactured 2 years ago, and that they are being replaced under warranty which is 3 years non-prorated. Now I'm on #3. They have been good about replacing it. Anybody have any experience with these Optima's or is it me? Thanks, Doug

FYI - you should be using the blue tops not the red... I've got the blue's and they are great with absolutely no probs

I told them what I was doing with it. I even took the merc battery specs with me. It's only used for starting. Looking at the Optima site it looks like the blue top is deep cycle and has extra terminals which I don't need. Are there any other differences? Doug

Friend has them & less than a year one has already died.

I had one in my race car that took a dump. It was less that a year old but probably fell into that bad batch from 2 years ago. Summit Replaced it along with refund for shipping and I have had no problems since.