Optima yellow top, still good?

[MAkahveli 10+ year member]

Hi I happen to have a yellow top optima that I just didn't want to throw away, thinking it can still be useful. It didn't properly charge the car it was in. It gave enough power for the car to start but idle was horrible and if I had the car sit (not started) for several weeks the battery would be just dead. The place I got it from checked it out bad and said they could only give me a $25 credit to another battery but I passed and got a cheap battery at walmart and the car been running fine every since. Now what I need to know is can I use this as an auxillary battery in my trunk still? How many volts does an amp need to do its thing? And yes it would be going off an isolator and running 2 amps but nothing serious one is for a 10" and the other for 2 door speakers. Soo........any ups or downs? Something else I need to know?

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[iceteebone 5,000+ posts]

it'll just add another strain f it is good and it sounds like your electrical system wasn't up to the task before

 

[MAkahveli 10+ year member]

The old car was actually a ford explorer, and the new one I'm thinking about is a mercedes 300ce

 

[badstang123 10+ year member]

Sometimes optimas will test bad if they are not charged well. I would put it on a high powered charger for a few hours and then have it tested again. The battery might still be good. I'm not sure how different testing is with the yellow tops, but I had many red tops that tested bad, I charged them for a few hours on high amp charger and they tested fine and worked for a couple more years.

 

[lubetek 10+ year member]

you don't need anything more than your single battery.

 

[badstang123 10+ year member]

you don't need anything more than your single battery.

I also wanted to add that I agree with the others that you don't need two batteries for your setup. Still get the yellow top charged and checked though, no reason to waste a battery if it might be good.