Art161

Every article I have read about replacement batteries seems to place a lot of emphasis on the Cold Cranking Amps of the battery, but not necessarily so much on other attributes that I think are important. I understand that it's not a good idea to go with lower CCA than the OEM battery, but why go much higher unless your vehicle is not in "normal" use? I think that the Reserve Capacity and ampere-hour specifications are also important. The RC will give an indication as to how many minutes you can run the car with no accessories on in case the alternator takes a dump. It seems to me that the higher the a-h, the longer your car can sit without being driven and still have capacity to start the car.

Our cars, if operating properly, should draw 300-400 amperes to start.

This is the information I have gathered on a few batteries that would supposedly fit my car. I say "supposedly" because the Optima is quite tall.

Motorcraft BXT-96R--500 CCA, RC 90, a-h 52.
Motorcraft BXT-40R--590 CCA, RC 105, a-h 60.
Interstate Mega-Tron Plus 40-R--590 CCA, RC 105, a-h 63.
Optima RedTop 35 (8020-164)--720 CCA, RC 90, a-h 44.

Of course there is the issue of quality. My OEM battery was replaced under warranty, and the replacement lasted about two years before it began to fail. I now have the Interstate, but it's too early to evaluate its life. It will be interesting to hear from others whether the Optima batteries that are now manufactured in Mexico are as good as the ones that were previously manufactured in the USA.

Thanks for your comments.

Nuke

Not all batteries are tested or advertised or built equally. Like many other things in life, one highly rated parameter will often result in another one being lower. But you bring up a good point. As long as you get a battery with an equal or greater CCA rating than the OE battery, why ISN'T RC a bigger part of the equation?

If I was at one of the previous plants that I worked at, I'd ask the battery SME (subject matter expert).