OrangeBird

iTrader: (1)

This post was in early 2016 and I had the battery about a year when I posted about it (in fact it may have been late 2014 when I got it) . A bit more than 4 years and my car still starts great , even in the perpetually cold northeast

OrangeBird

iTrader: (1)

And I do think this is a fair question , I've never known of any company to consistently turn out crap and stay in business (Anyone here old enough to remember "AMC" , the American Motors Corporation ?) ....

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

That doesn't apply because of the scaling of the operation. I'm a small business - I have less than half a dozen employees and a tiny marketing budget. When you have a juggernaut like Optima with the backing of a multi-billion dollar parent company like Johnson Controls, you can buy advertising and marketing that largely will invalidate the weak, pathetic cry's of the individual with a bad product experience. All you have to do is repeat the marketing slogans often enough and unfortunately our primitive monkey brains will believe anything that's repeated often enough and loudly enough. One only has to look at the Trump campaign to understand that. It's a marketing machine - he learned from daddy's lawyer - doesn't matter what the TRUTH is - the ploy is always the same - "Deny everything..... claim victory!". And when you have millions of dollars to drive the point home, sponsor race teams, fishing celebrities, etc - people believe you by association and because of loud marketing. I have none of that so my business operates entirely on word of mouth. I don't have the ability to let even a single bad experience negatively affect my reputation - all customers complaints must be resolved to satisfaction because I can't bury them in a landslide of marketing dollars.

So yeah - if I, as a small business, do shoddy work I won't be in business for long, nor will my business be worth selling. But that is not the case when you are A. The biggest AGM battery manufacturer on the block, and B. Have a marketing budget that exceeds the GDP of some small countries.

Just look at Harbor Freight Tools. Virtually everything in that place is utter garbage. They make money like they are printing it in the back room and they do so by selling essentially hyped-up trash to people that don't know any better.

I doubt that there has been any significant change in lead production. Nearly 80% of what the US produces is recycled (secondary production), and as you noted transportation costs are high so they are going to recycle the stuff as close to it's origin as is feasible.

And a producer as large as the Power Division of Brookfield Asset Management could build their own smelting facility. For that matter they could buy and operate the mine also. It's a matter of willingness to do so at the profit loss that is inherent in employing American workers. It's obvious from the cost cutting measures that profit is the ultimate goal and management did not believe that the product would bear the price increase necessary to maintain US production - which it would not because the design and implementation is inferior to competitors like Odyssey - and the Optima would have to cost very close to what the Odyssey costs if produced domestically - making it no longer competitive in the market.

GD

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

And yet it lived on. Chrysler bought it and still prints money from the Moron's buying Jeep products.

GD

OrangeBird

iTrader: (1)

Jeeps , , , As if the Pacer , Gremlin , and Hornet weren't bad enough ...

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

Jim so I just tested it two different meters. One reads 12.54 one 12.62. Think it's been over 24. I'll check it again tm morning.

ploegi

Hey now, My Gremlin was an awesome little car. Straight six, 3 speed manual. Would take a beating, and come back for more. That car went EVERYWHERE, including off-road, in places where jeeps wouldn't follow. (and yes, I got stuck too. )

That pacer was just flat out ugly.

Remember the Javelin? Or AMX?

OptimaJim

GeneralDisorder, just because you don't want a question to apply to other businesses doesn't mean it can't apply and I already gave you a great example of why it does apply to our business- we have large customers who won't place an order for our batteries unless they pass their internal testing. This has nothing to do with marketing or what President Trump did to get elected, it's just common sense. If you produce a bad product or service, you may be able to get away with it for a period of time, but it will eventually catch up to you. It doesn't matter if you're selling a million widgets to a national audience or installing furnaces in Waldo, Wisconsin.

I'm not coming on here telling anyone they should use our batteries because that's what James Clay uses in his race car or Edwin Evers uses in his tournament bass boat, but the fact of the matter is, those guys have everything tied up in their respective vehicles. That is their livelihood and we are far from their only sponsor and in both of their cases and many others, far from their largest sponsor. If our batteries don't work, they can't compete, let alone hope to win and they have too much at stake to risk it on a product that won't deliver, whether it's batteries, tires, brakes or bait. If they can get a sponsorship on a product that actually delivers, great. If they can't, they'll be the first to tell you they'd rather pay for a product that works, than get paid to use one that doesn't.

As it relates to our marketing budget, you are again making wildly inaccurate claims about my business, that you have no factual basis for even beginning to understand. I'll admit, when I read your claim that our marketing budget exceeded the GDP of some small countries, I wasn't sure if it was true or not, because I don't know the GDP of every country, so I looked it up. As it turns out Tuvalu is at the bottom at $38 million, at least according to wikipedia.

I'm glad our marketing efforts have the appearance of having far more dollars behind them than they actually do, at least to your eyes, but our budget is nowhere near even tiny Tuvalu's GDP. We don't sponsor anyone or anything in NASCAR and you won't see our commercials during the Superbowl. We might be the biggest name in AGM, but it's still very much an ocean of flooded lead-acid batteries and we're just a small fish compared to the flooded battery brands that do advertise during the Superbowl and do have naming rights for NASCAR races.

My only knowledge of Harbor Freight is what I know of the products I've purchased there. I do have a standard warning about bargain bin battery maintainers that could be sold at any retailer, which could include Harbor Freight and many other retailers. That is that I always caution people that they should make absolutely sure they are buying a charger or maintainer that is properly-regulated, as many bargain bin units that people pick up at a wide variety of retailers are not properly-regulated and could overcharge batteries.

While I don't have a Harbor Freight near where I live now, I do shop at Harbor Freight every year before doing free battery installations on SEMA Show vehicles in Las Vegas. All the 10mm sockets I buy there work great while they are in our possession and as they walk away, we go buy more. We also buy all our hand carts there, that we use to haul batteries around the SEMA Show. They also work flawlessly and we've actually managed to hang onto a few of those beyond our weeks at SEMA and haul batteries at other events with them.

When I did live near a Harbor Freight, I bought a workbench there once. It wasn't forged by Dwarven blacksmiths out of some rare Asgardian metal and the wooden shelves aren't made out of Brazilian ipe wood. In spite of those shortcomings, it doesn't seem to have any trouble holding a half dozen or so car batteries and a few chargers, which is all I need it to do. Now if I were a professional mechanic like yourself, who uses such equipment every day, I might be more inclined to pay a premium price for the highest-quality tools available. Being that I'm not, I'm glad my options for buying tools don't require me to give Snap-On $25 for a single 10mm deep socket that I know will last forever, but will end up in someone else's tool box by the following week.

As for primary lead production, you can doubt US production has dropped significantly or go back to googling for answers you seemed so intent to find when they suited your claims. If you search, you'll see primary lead production in the US has dropped significantly and not because there are fewer cars on the road that need batteries (there are actually more).

I don't know the locations and functions of all the facilities owned by our parent company, because there are a lot of them, but I know they did open a secondary smelter in South Carolina since I started with the company. They could probably buy lead mines and they could probably buy a retailer and start selling batteries out of stores too, but you could also open up a machine shop and make all your own parts and tools. At some point, businesses both big and small, focus in on what they're good at and try to improve it even more. That's probably why I'm surrounded by dairy farms, but still buy all my milk at the grocery store.

I'm not a C-level guy and never really had that ambition. I enjoy the automotive aftermarket industry too much to tie myself down to a suit & tie every day and endless conference calls and meetings. I spent my Monday morning with the competitors who are running in the One Lap of America and even though it was a little wet and kind of cold, that's pretty hard to beat. I have spent time with C-level folks and had days at our plant. I'm on a first-name basis with our engineers and also participated in teardown studies. At no point in any of those experiences did I ever hear any hint or suggestion that we've ever done anything to compromise the quality of our products in any way for the sake of a fatter bottom line or any other reason and I don't think our products take a backseat to anyone on quality. I have heard plenty of conversations about how we are trying to continually improve our products, because that is a never-ending process for any manufacturer. It's not less expensive to use pure lead or pure poly. It's not cheaper to make SpiralCells than flat plates and it's definitely not cheaper to use cast straps instead of using tombstone welds, but we do it all and we are the only ones who are willing to do it all.

IROCZ1989, if your voltage is settling and staying between 12.5 and 12.6 volts, your battery is probably fine.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

Thanks. Well even though I dont have a horse in this race anymore per say. I can say at least your on the forums giving a **** or so it seems. With all this back and forth It would be nice to see a head to head on these 2 agms. Documented on video. I guess you could go back and forth with this and that about how this and that one failed. I did have an issue in the past and got burned by one battery. So that's my experience. I purchased another after that and today it seems ok. Time will tell on this one though. End user exp matters. Some see alot of batteries. Most like the home guy and gal probably see not that many compared to shops. So I can somewhat understand that side of the story all the banter aside. All I know in the end when a product burns you, wether it was an appliance, car, part or in this case a battery, it just leaves a bad taste in your mouth and weary of purchasing that brand again. From what I gather from the back and forth here the production is in Mexico now. I know it's a buisness decision in the end but consumers see that differently. Hell what a time I had building both my Sbc and Sbf for example. I had to really dig to find the rotating assembly that was actually made in the USA. Not forged somewhere finished here. But everything. Maybe it's just me but I as a consumer dont like stuff made overseas. I've personally seen on alot of things the quality just isnt the same. Anyhoo. Thanks for the input here.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

Ya'll talk too much.

OptimaJim

IROCZ1989, I may not provide the answers people want to hear, but we do want to make an effort to provide honest answers to enthusiasts (and everyone else who buys our products), because we think they deserve that. I understand the desire of a consumer who wants to buy a product made in this country, because I saw that side of it before I went to work in the industry and see it even more now. However, I've learned the automotive industry isn't always that cut & dry. I watch a company every day brag about how they manufacture their products in their US factory, knowing they also buy imported products made by someone else, that they also sell to their customers. Technically, someone else made those products for them so they're not lying about where they make the products they do manufacture. Perhaps the customers who receive those imports do know the country of origin, but the end consumer is definitely led to believe everything associated with that manufacturer in this country was made here, when that just isn't the case.

As far as comparing batteries from any manufacturers, how do you hope to get the best comparison? You can load test two new batteries, but that only tells you how good they both are when they are new. What about after three years later or after they've both been deeply-discharged down to 10 volts a dozen times? A battery can be made to test great right out of the box or in any number of other testing environments, but that doesn't necessarily make it a great battery for a guy in Arizona, who is putting it into his Camaro. Most consumers just want a battery that will last as long as possible for them in their car, truck or boat, but that Camaro owner will get lured in by how many cold cranking amps (or some other proprietary cranking measurement) a battery is rated at, when the reality for him is that he'll never turn that engine over in weather colder than 70 degrees and his 305 hardly needs anything to start it anyway.

QwkTrip, I'd rather write too much, than not enough.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

Thanks for the response. Idk how you would do a test. I'm not in the battery industry. There must be torture tests you have put your batteries through as do most manufactures with their products. 2 batteries that are comparable side by side torture tested. Then disassembled to actually see what's inside for comparison. I'm sure something can be done. Hot cold tests etc Just torture test. I dont have a background in the industry so maybe I'm way off here. Just this back and forth that has happened in this thread would maybe provide some answers, but might open a can of worms.

QwkTrip

iTrader: (22)

Not where I work. People would get fired for doing what you're doing right now. But hey, if Optima believes this is a good use of company resources and time and the message they want to send.... Then keep up the good work!

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

I think this is his job. E care manager while related to the health industry if you research it, is like a middleman between the consumer and the buisness how to best take care of the customer. Like in terms of questions applications problems etc. I assume instead of waiting for customer service calls to Optima, Jim directly goes out to scour auto enthusiasts forums to best represent named products and supply info and help. Correct me if I'm wrong.

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

Bingo.

While opinions and experience about the product may vary, (check out the feedback at Summit on the Odyssey...2 negative out of 20, or 10%)

SUMMIT LINK

...I have always appreciated Jim's effort to tell the manufacturers side of the story. I've even reached out to him to provide feedback on specific threads on other forums in the past.

Everyone here is a big boy or girl. We can all listen to both sides, and make our own choices. But to do that, you need both sides.

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

Yes you are right. Yes I had a bad experience. Even though I bought another one. Jim has been taking alot of **** in this thread. And still he comes back willing to answer questions. No matter if you love or hate the product, I have to respect that effort.

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

It's funny in a way to hear how peoples experiences vary. My bother just ordered a new Optima for his Z06, to replace its conventional lead acid battery. It's like his 3rd or 4th one over the years in show cars as well as in his motorhomes. He's not had a bad experience. Others have not been so lucky.

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

Actually one of the 3 star reviews on summit is due to a shipping error - which is on Summit not Odyssey. So 5%. The remaining one guy that doesn't seem to be able to figure out a trickle charger - probably using chargers that aren't capable of properly maintaining an AGM. I seriously doubt that he has had 3 bad Odyssey's that have lasted only a year each. That's clearly a case of user error.

GD

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

I can't speak for all locales but my local Odyssey wholesale rep is AMAZING. And he's not some e-care manager - he's an accomplished gear head with his own hot rods. He builds custom battery cables and has a booth at EVERY local show. He has switched the ENTIRE Portland Metro Tri-Met bus system fleet over to Odyssey after a multi-year trial (this is essentially a local government agency with 958 buses). They went from a very short lifespan (less than a year) on lead-acid batteries to about 6 years of service for the Odyssey batteries. They had a battery ROOM staffed by 3 full time employees that they were able to cut down to 1 full time employee servicing fleet batteries. No more acid and filling stations, and all that garbage. If they are good enough for Metropolitan Public Transit.....

http://www.odysseybatterynw.com/

And yes his delivery vehicle is the 1974? Orange Odyssey van.

GD

OptimaJim

IROCZ1989, there is an SAE standard J2801 test for 12-volt batteries, that I think most companies use to back up any performance claims made about lifespan. We also run a vibration test to substantiate our 15x vibration resistance claim. I've never seen any companies or brands throw all their cards on the table with such a public comparison test like that. I think the closest is what Consumer Reports does, which is a different series of tests and hasn't even included our batteries in some of their recent comparisons, perhaps because we don't have the sales volume of the brands they do test. That testing is all lab-based though, with environmental simulations.

QwkTrip, this is part of my job description and I'm registered on thousands of forums and a member of hundreds of Facebook groups, although I spend most of my time in Facebook groups in the classified groups, pointing out that batteries being sold as “new” in those groups are actually used and carry no warranty coverage. More than ten years ago, Optima decided they wanted to be more pro-active in customer support, so instead of waiting to help consumers who reached out to our customer service department, they sent me out to where they are having active conversations about our brand.

I can't tell you how much horrible battery advice I've come across over the years online, but our call center would sometimes hear from people who followed that advice only to come to the realization after they reached out to us, that they'd permanently damaged their battery and voided their warranty. Safety ended up being the top priority, but I try to cover as much ground as possible.

DynoDave43 & GeneralDisorder, you are both correct and anyone can check out product reviews of any product on any eComm site that shows them, but what do you really learn from them? As GD pointed out, in the link you posted, someone replaced a battery four times in four years, but still gave that product three stars (I'm positive no one has bad enough luck to buy four “bad” batteries in a row from any reputable brand or manufacturer). One of the five-star reviewers in that link talks about how disappointed he is that that product used to last forever, but no longer meets his expectations and that there are better options out there from other brands.

I've read other reviews where a battery gets one star, because it lasted longer than the warranty, but not as long as the advertised design life and others upset because they were charged sales tax. At least a few sites now identify verified purchases, but how much do positive reviews help, when they're left after only a few days or weeks of ownership? How much do negative reviews help a consumer, if they are related not to the product itself, but dealings with the retailer or shipping of the product?

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

You are correct Jim. I didn't look at the stars. I used to deal with Maritz surveys, and people regularly get the "stars" wrong, where they don't match their comments. On Summit, I read the comments. 2 negative. Out of 20. 10%. Four bad in a row would be weird, but someone here is claiming an abnormally high failure rate too. Consumers read, think, and decide for themselves.

That is a limited, non-scientific sample on Summit. But it's also the world we live in. Yelp and the like are full of whiny complaints about the smallest things. I don't use any of them. In my previous job, I watched an auto maker go to ridiculous lengths to pacify people with the most absurd complaints, just to get them taken down or corrected/updated. It's little more than legalized extortion. But sadly, that's the world we live in. And why forums are as far as I go on any form of "social" site.

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Jim, what do you do with the "dead" batteries you get back that are still good? Can you resell those at a nice discounted price minus a warranty ?

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

No way they would sell them. Because they will end up on the grey market being resold as "new".

GD

TTOP350

iTrader: (8)

Unless the case was heat stamped "used, no warranty"

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

That wouldn't hardly slow them down. They would smooth that out with a plastic welder and put some official looking sticker on it and ship it as new.

GD

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

Could any of these issues be attributed to this reseller type activity? I mean I know people so cheap they buy everything on Ebay for their cars just to save pennies on the dollar . Then they blast the manufacture when it's actually a used product and fails. We get a ton of batteries dropped of for recycle in our division that's deals with that. Never seen an Optima yet. If these are showing up on Ebay. The dealer who either sold/ gave these to the reseller or is participating in it somehow should lose its buisness dealings with Optima.

DynoDave43

iTrader: (11)

I think he alluded to that in this response. Not identical, but a similar issue.

"QwkTrip, this is part of my job description and I'm registered on thousands of forums and a member of hundreds of Facebook groups, although I spend most of my time in Facebook groups in the classified groups, pointing out that batteries being sold as “new” in those groups are actually used and carry no warranty coverage. More than ten years ago, Optima decided they wanted to be more pro-active in customer support, so instead of waiting to help consumers who reached out to our customer service department, they sent me out to where they are having active conversations about our brand."

OptimaJim

Hi TTOP350, we can never sell discharge-only warranty returns, so the vast majority get recycled. Besides putting them in our own vehicles, in the past, we've filled up ChumpCar fields with these batteries and we do regularly send them to Roadkill and some of our other brand ambassadors, who all have signed agreements with us. We do mark them very prominently with a Sharpie, but when they're in the hands of people we know, we're not too concerned about them trying to sell them in the secondary market.

The vast majority of people selling used batteries as new don't know or don't care how to begin to hide the age of a battery and aren't so ambitious about hiding the true condition beyond wiping it down with a wet rag and maybe polishing up the terminals to hide previous use. IROCZ1989, when reviews are posted that aren't verified purchases, there's certainly a possibility that their product experience was with a second-hand battery with an unknown service and maintenance history. Many fleets replace all their batteries on a set schedule, regardless of whether or not all the batteries actually need to be replaced. Many people know this and as a result, a lot of used batteries find their way into the secondary market.

There are also people in various areas of the country, who go around and buy used batteries from a variety of other sources, wipe them down, charge them up and sell them in a variety of outlets. Even if they're paying someone $30 for a core, if they sell it for $75 or $80 that's a pretty good margin on a battery that is $200 or more when new and seems like a really good deal to the person buying it as well...until it isn't.

Here's a guy I stumbled across this morning. Every battery in his two photos has a front label that is at least seven years old and all the top labels have been removed. (Some retailers have unique part numbers and they may not want people knowing they are selling batteries off their core pile). Links don't seem to be showing up, but it's sullythebarber on Instagram.


Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries

86_Dan_Z28

iTrader: (1)

Everybody needs to see this:

articwhiteZ

iTrader: (56)

to charge a Optima battery with a reg battery charger.. you have to put a reg battery that needs charge on the reg charger..then piggy back the optima with jumper cables to the charging battery.. works every time..been using Optima Batterys for 20 years.. have paid for 4 battery in that time still using 2 of them...Red Tops..they hold up better in drag racing..


been doing this for over 20 years...love my Optimas

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

Scotty is a little weird but he is an excellent representation of the general consensus among automotive professionals. I own a shop and speak to many other shop owners and technicians in my metro area. I don't find anyone with positive opinions of the product. Optima has successfully pioneered the direct-to-consumer marketing of car batteries making it much harder for us to protect consumers against poor quality parts. People will buy and install them without ever asking our opinion. By then it's too late.

GD

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

I think the info about Johnson Controls shutting down an American plant right before Thanksgiving if true is the worst part. If true this will be the last one. Build the thing in the US. You make a salary working for Johnson controls living the dream in the US touting the product. But make it off the backs of low paid Mexicans. Gotta keep those share holders happy.

ironwill

Been reading this thread with great interest. Just looked at Jeg's website; they list one yellow-top Optima for $342; a red-top for a little over $200.


Looking through my maintenance records, I see the last time I bought a battery for my Camaro was eight years ago on 10-25-2011; an Interstate that cost me $106.95. My '03 ZR2 S10 that I traded on a new Silverado a year ago I had also put an Interstate in it; IIRC, that battery was about 7 years old at time of trade.




Just sayin...................

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

Last Optima I bought was a few years ago. Tag still on it. $185. The local interstate around me sells rebuilds at less than half the price of new with a 6 month or 1 year warrenty. Paid around $50 for a Honda civic battery normally $120 brand new. Battery lasted 3 years and I sold the car. Probably still working. $320 for battery made cross border? Min wage in Mexico is about $5 a day US converted.


Bet that video is going to open a can of worms. Scotty must have been watching this thread, lol.

ironwill

SMH.........................

While I keep my political opinions to myself these days, I'll say this much: in the US today, unless you're a billionaire, you have zero say in what goes on in this country. I can however, be selective with my wallet. For myself, I refuse to do business with greedy companies and/or companies known to sell $hitty products; I'll either find an alternative, or else just do without.

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

The quality of flooded lead acid batteries seems to have dropped in the last 5 years. AAA is now reporting an average lifespan of 3 years for conventional batteries. Probably also due to newer vehicles having more demanding electrical systems.

Personally I prefer the reserve capacity and no leakage/terminal corrosion of the Odyssey's. They will handle the "door ajar" or "dome light" situation much better.

GD

OptimaJim

arcticwhiteZ, the parallel charging technique you're describing isn't required for Optima batteries unless the battery has been deeply-discharged and the charger doesn't recognize or deliver current to it. That's not just true for Optima batteries either, but any deeply-discharged battery. It just tends to happen with AGM batteries more, because they have very low internal resistance compared to flooded batteries, so they can deliver current well beyond their specified ratings and become more deeply-discharged as a result.

GeneralDisorder, you're a smart guy and I understand you and your friends don't think much of our products, but if Scotty's opinion or your opinion about our products were really anywhere near a consensus among such a large and influential group of battery purchasers as automotive professionals, we would've gone out of business years ago. The trends AAA is seeing, which I assume are not limited to Optima products, are being driven by start/stop cars and I expect you'll see an industry-wide shift away from flooded products to respond to the higher demands of newer vehicles. There are still a lot of vehicles on the road that aren't too demanding, but as the car parc turns over, you'll see a significant increase in AGM products.

IROCZ1989, there is never a good time of year to close a plant and I took no joy in seeing one of our competitors shut down one of their plants last month, but our plant was closed at the end of January and employees were all notified several months in advance. They were all offered placement at other locations or re-training, which is how my boss and many other folks ended up in Milwaukee, where our parent corporation is one of the largest private employers in the state.

I don't know how your American dream was going in the late-2000s, but I remember the struggles in Wisconsin. I just got married in July of 2007 and with that, found myself needing a larger home to accommodate two more kids. My neighbor across the street was from Germany and working for a local manufacturer for two more years, before heading back home. We decided we could cope with an overcrowded house for two more years and agreed to buy his house when he was transferred back home. Two weeks later, they let him and a lot of other folks go and I suddenly found myself as the owner of two homes.

I ended up paying two mortgages for seven years, while I tried to sell one of those homes, when no one in our area was hiring and every business was in survival mode and let the new pastor from one of our local churches stay in our old home for a few years, because he couldn't sell his home in Michigan. I remember going to SEMA in 2009, when attendance was so low, they were offering free exhibit space in Central Hall to our Ultimate Street Car competitors. That was a very tough time for everyone in our industry.

I've been incredibly fortunate to get to know a lot of the leadership at our company, as well as many of the leaders at a lot of other companies in our area and I could hear the stress in their voices during that time. Regardless of whether the economy is humming or struggling, everyone I know who owns or runs a business, big or small, always tells me how hard it is to find good employees and how desperate they are to hold onto the great people they do find. Even as good as the economy is now, our industry is going to see some massive changes over the next 10-12 years and the mergers & acquisitions that are happening now and being talked about are all part of that transformation. The people running some of these companies aren't worried about dividends to shareholders because they're too preoccupied with making sure their businesses will even be relevant and viable for any of their employees to have jobs in the next ten years.

There is nothing rebuilt on the “rebuild” batteries you are referencing. Most of the batteries I see advertised as “rebuilt” or “remanufactured” are discharge-only warranty returns or core exchanges that were charged up and wiped down with a wet rag. Someone might save $10 on a core fee for a battery they didn't even need to replace, that a retailer may turn around and sell for $50 or more. As you indicated, that can be a great deal for everyone but the person who got rid of a perfectly-good battery.

ironwill, if you're going to make comparisons on pricing, at least be honest about what you're comparing. The $342 YellowTop you saw on Jeg's is the largest, most expensive battery we sell, a Group 31 and would have to go in the trunk of any third gen F-body, because it would never fit under the hood. Most third gens take a 75/25, which is a much smaller, much less expensive battery and there is a RedTop 75/25 on Jeg's for $199.99. With the $50 rebate we have running through the end of the month, that battery is $149.99. Nevermind how much you paid for a battery 11 years ago, how much will a 75/25 from the brand of your choice cost you today?

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries

jimmylev

Who do you think those shareholders are? Probably your neighbor, you, in some mutual fund, your pension fund...
It's not the proverbial 1%, it's EVERYONE.

ironwill

I said it was eight years ago, not eleven. And that same Interstate battery today is $117.95 according to my Interstate dealer.

You can save the sales pitch; I won't be buying any of your overpriced batteries.

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

Sales pitch notwithstanding, the batteries I use and recommend are more expensive than the Optima. You get what you pay for. And the quality remains long after the price is forgotten.

GD

SirReveller

iTrader: (4)

This is weirdly timely as my pro happened to mention offhand on the phone *two days ago* in the course of talking about the broader project that he’d dropped in a red top (to replace some dying CanTire w/e type pos that was in there that never worked great again after a recharge from full drain anyway) and I was like ‘oh yah, sure great whatever- heard of’em- don’t know much about’em’. GD and Scotty’s views are troubling, despite Jim’s noble efforts here...and I def don’t like Mexican production, however unsurprising that is...also sounds like our ol’Brookfield up here overpaid in a typical top-of-cycle acquisition lol.

My guy’s old school so good chance he’s going off optima’s older better rep, or maybe is just a distributor and biased (or maybe they’re still pretty good units) but long story short a brand new red top is in and I for damn sure won’t forget to report back in this thread in _ months to _ years time : P

*I’ll note, being inadvertently biased to the optim-istic side now myself, that at least the reviews of the last few years including at least one ‘89 IROC I spotted skew pretty heavily to the 4/5 star.
https://www.summitracing.com/int/parts/ult-9022-091/

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

If you check Optimas YouTube page it's a sad site to see. Basically paid sponsors in high end vehicles promoting Optima batteries. Like oh here is an Optima in a car running the Nuremberg...Maybe 15 years ago that was interesting. I wonder if Scotty Kilmer was contacted by Optimas lawyers. If my battery box was not drilled at the height of my Optima now I would be replacing it.

ironwill

This is just another instance of a money grab by a big corporation; buy up a small but highly successful company manufacturing and selling a high-quality product, then shut down American production and shift it to some other country where it can be made much more cheaply, thus greatly increasing profitability. Unfortunately, this is now the way big business operates in America. They don't give a $%&* about declining quality; by the time the public catches on, they've already made big $$$. When profits eventually drop off, they just close the doors and look for the next American company they can exploit.


Regarding that YT guy, everyone---even a knucklehead--is entitled to his/her opinion on something, and it isn't against the law to express it as long as it doesn't come under the heading of libel. If simply rating some product as being a POS were illegal, all the websites posting reviews of products scattered all over the internet would have been in serious legal trouble a long time ago.



I'll also add that all products made outside the US aren't junk, but it's up to the buyer to perform his due diligence, and do some research on the quality history of whatever item he intends to purchase. As always, Caveat Emptor.

OptimaJim

I apologize for the delay in getting back to this thread. It's been a busy past few weeks. IROCZ1989, we are a business, so our YouTube channel is going to have a lot of content promoting our business. Unlike Scotty, we don't monetize our channel. Since we don't have that financial incentive to get YouTube to serve third-party ads to viewers of our videos, we'd rather have people watch videos on our own website instead. So while we do have a presence on YouTube, our emphasis is on our own site. The Nurburgring promotion you are referencing is one we just launched, in which one winner will receive an all-expenses paid trip to the 2019 SEMA Show and an all-expenses paid trip to Germany for a ride around Nurburgring at speed in James Clay's BMW. We have five other prizes for other experiences as well.

Ironwill, if you're bargain-hunting, you can throw a lawnmower battery in your car with a six-month warranty for even less money and probably get that to work for at least the six months of the warranty. However, if you want a sealed AGM battery, the only one Interstate offers in that size is $74 more expensive, has one year more of warranty coverage and less cranking amps than the Optima RedTop 75/25.

Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries

ironwill

I don't "bargain hunt;" I buy the best I can find, regardless of the cost---Interstate. And I'd certainly buy a lawnmower battery before I'd ever spend a cent on any of your overpriced, low-quality stuff.

IROCZ1989

iTrader: (1)

Jim. So what's Optimas take on a video that has almost half a million views telling consumers to not buy your product because of the exact same concerns and opinions expressed here. Basically used to be built in US. Now build in Mexico. Since then quality has dropped. There are only 3 scenarios. Either quality has stayed the same, gotten better, or gotten worse. I remember working at a mill out of high school. Shut the doors. They went to Mexico as well. Was because we made to much an hour compared to them. That's about it. Basically NAFTA decimated a whole city. About 10-15% of working population of 80,000 people total were out of work.

I mean all these opinions and experiences you are saying are all wrong on the quality. Can we all really be exaggerating or what?

battmann

iTrader: (9)

Scotty’s video states that if you replace an optima battery under warranty, the new battery you receive doesn’t carry a warranty. Is that correct?

OptimaJim

IROCZ1989, I can offer you my take on the video and I think I already have in this thread. There's really nothing in it that hasn't been posted in this thread and on a hundred different message boards over the last 20 years already, except maybe the absurd notion that anyone offers a lifetime warranty on a car battery. The premise that our quality has declined in any way is based on your opinion and/or the opinions of others, some of which may be based on personal experience and some of which may be simply based on someone else's opinion. It is no more valid than me saying I know three guys who own 1989 Camaros and they all beat their wives and then asking you how often you beat your wife. You may not even be married and the problems some people attribute to a perceived decline in the quality of our batteries could be one of the many warranty returns we receive that are discharge-only and work fine once we put them on a charger.

I used to live in a GM town (Janesville) and was really upset that the Suburban I ordered was not going to be built there, but in Sialo, Mexico. It wasn't that I had anything against the people of Sialo, I just wanted a Suburban built by my friends and neighbors. As I expressed my concerns to the plant manager, he told me not to worry and indicated that the quality of the Suburbans coming out of Sialo was actually better than what they were seeing in Janesville, which at the time, had the oldest production facility in the country.

Everyone else in town warned me that my truck was going to be nothing but trouble because it was built in Mexico. Meanwhile, the plant was having to shut down production during deer season or whenever too many people called in sick because the Packers were playing. Then the police arrested 15 people at the plant on drug charges. Then a plant electrician, who not coincidentally ran a Corvette parts business out of his house, was busted for stealing what the papers reported was $100,000 in parts and tools (my friends on the police force said it was far more and the guy somehow ended up getting his job back). In spite of everyone else's warnings, my Suburban ended up being a great truck and I began to understand why Sialo might be producing better vehicles. In spite of the warnings of some on the Internet, Optima has millions of batteries in use, that are working great and lasting far longer than a flooded battery would (but if ironwill insists on buying a flooded Interstate, our parent company will be happy to make that battery for him too).

I certainly felt bad that a lot of my friends either lost their jobs or were forced to transfer when that plant closed in Janesville. They weren't costing their employer money by calling in sick so they could go hunting or watch a football game, dealing drugs at work or coming home with truckloads of stolen parts. Virtually all of them knew some of their co-workers were doing that stuff though and many felt helpless to do anything about it. Some of them quit before the plant closed, because they just couldn't deal with that environment. So was NAFTA responsible for that plant's closing or was it the costly actions of some of those employees or was it just that the factory was too old or something else or some combination of factors? The more I learn about decisions that big, the less black and white they seem to be. I'm not an expert on economics, but if all the "NAFTA factories" moved back here, where unemployment is at or near historic lows, what would happen?

battman, going on memory, there was a section in Scotty's video, where he selectively quoted our website regarding warranties on replacement batteries. I'll provide the link to that page for you here, so you can read it for yourself in it's entirety if you'd like, but I'll also copy & paste it here:

"An OPTIMA battery does not have a lifetime warranty. Your initial purchase of an OPTIMA battery carries a warranty based on the model and type of usage. If your OPTIMA battery is replaced under the warranty policy, your replacement battery carries a warranty period from the original OPTIMA purchase date. Warranty replacement batteries do not carry a new warranty."

What that means is, if someone buys a YellowTop from us today and puts it in a car that just ate a battery every year, we'll take the hit and keep providing warranty replacements until the term of the warranty expires, three years from the date of the original purchase on June 13, 2022. That's pretty much standard practice in the industry, although we're one of the very few companies that actually takes the time to explain that to consumers. Now that doesn't mean that someone might not run into a retailer, who finds out their stereo system was wired by monkeys and would deny additional warranty replacements, because the batteries they keep bringing back every three months are only discharged. It also doesn't mean someone might not show up at a retailer who has a new kid behind the counter, who just looks at a date sticker on a battery and hands over a free replacement for a battery that was already warrantied two years ago at month 35 of the original warranty period, effectively providing almost five years of warranty coverage. When you sell millions of batteries, you're going to have a little bit of everything.


Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries

ploegi

And we all know there is no theft, or drug dealing in Mexico.....

Plants moved out of the US for one reason. Money. Labor is MUCH cheaper in Mexico, China, et. al. Not to mention there is no EPA, or OSHA, or unions to contend with either. Closing an old plant shouldn't come as a surprise, but, if GM, Optima, or whomever, is going to build a new one, why not build it where labor costs will be SIGNIFICANTLY less? Upper management wants those six and seven figure bonuses every year, instead of wasting it on labor costs....... Free trade agreements killed american manufacturing. Today, China could win a 'war' with us with just a few words. "We are not going to trade with you any more." And we would be all done. It would be painful for China, we ARE about 30% of the foreign market....but they would get over it. We, on the other hand, would suddenly discover that many products were no longer available. Prices would skyrocket, and our economy would take a serious dump. China could then come in and buy up whatever they wanted for pennies on the dollar. What's really sad is, WE GAVE THEM THAT ABILITY. WE are the ones responsible for opening their markets, to the point that they were seeing double digit percentages of economic growth. All that lovely money gave them more to spend on their military, which gave them the ability to take over territory, and no one said boo about it.

We were told that NAFTA would be 'good' for our economy. Products made in Mexico would be less expensive. That was a nice line, but, it most certainly didn't happen that way. I bet your Suburban built in Mexico, cost just as much, if not more, than the previous model year built here in the states. Where is the savings we were promised?

And quite frankly, hearing from someone in corporate, PR, or whatever department it is that you work in, trying to convince me that 'quality is just as good' with the mexican produced batteries, doesn't really carry a lot of water. You get PAID to say that, and 'truth' doesn't enter into the bargain anywhere at all. I would expect that if you said "Yeah, quality has really gone downhill since we moved to mexico." that you wouldn't have a job very long........ You will have to excuse us if we simply won't just 'take your word' for it.......

GeneralDisorder

iTrader: (1)

The fact that they have to pay a shill to put out all these "product quality" fires says enough. There wouldn't be a concern over product quality of the product lived up to it's claims. You really think Scotty Kilmer doesn't know how to charge a battery? You can't just claim your customers are ignorant and all using the product wrong. The volume of people with bad experiences speaks for itself.

GD