What makes a good car battery?

[Cret]

I could do with replacing my battery on the legacy and I want to get something a bit better than a £40 'dms special' so that I have extra cranking power, more capacity than normal and hopefully a long lifespan for the new battery.

Now the stats on my current one say the following:
Type: 065
CCA (cold cranking amps): 495
Capacity: 55ahr (Ampere hours)

Now I know what this stuff means and that's fine. I know that CCA is basically the 'grunt' it has ie on a high compression engine you need a higher cranking ampage often because of the effort required to crank the engine, and I know that the capacity is how long a battery will sustain a certain level of amp hours and what that means.

What I'm not sure about is some of the aftermarket batteries I've seen.
I've looked at 3 brands so far:
Optima
Varley
Odyssey

Optima always used to be favoured for the ICE brigade as they're deep cycle batteries and so on.
Varley seem to quote weird figures on their batteries that look like they'd give dismal performance but I'm guessing this is just the info being presented in a different way?
Odyssey batteries seem to be smaller than normal and pack a big punch in terms of cranking amps, but worse capacity than standard batteries.

So I'm not sure what to get. Ideally I want a battery that has a little more cranking power than a normal one (so it will whizz the engine over effortlessly), more capacity, and tiny reduction in battery size (to help clear one of my intercooler pipes). High capacity is the main important one really since the car will have a computer in it which will drain a lot of juice.
So far I've not found anything that seems to give all of the above, or really any that give a decent capacity.

I know there's other factors like being vibration resistant, and some batteries have gel so they can be posistioned how you want etc but they're minor points for me.

Any suggestions for what other brands are good, or what performance batteries any of you have tried & tested?

I've asked it in here btw as it's not an ICE specific question as such cos I want one that is good in all respects.

[iomgto]

I run optima's there great for the first year then after that fail.... which isnt nice when there £171 each...

next battery i am going to try is odyssey, not heard a bad word about them yet bar the price.. Numax i think its called is ment to be a good battery and only about £80 quid.

I use my batteries heavily for winching and also upgrading to twin alternators.. see what happens eh!

[tree]

ive heard good things about optima and varley never hear dof odyssey.

optima do a couple of dirrent types of battery as far as i recall oen deep cycle for the likes of ICE usage and otehr lightweight ones taht pakc a punch just to start the vehicle...

Perhaps check the websites see what the applicatiosn of each are and whats best suited to you.

[Cret]

Cheers guys

Bit worrying to hear that about the Optima ones dude. Just the one, or more?

Bones has an odyssey one on his vette and it seems really good.
Someone suggested bosch to me as they do a 610cca/65ahr one for £65, but whether or not it fits I dunno.
3 or 5 year warrantee too.

[gazza_]

get the biggest cranking amps you can that fit in

[///AMG MERCINATOR]

Cheers guys

Bit worrying to hear that about the Optima ones dude. Just the one, or more?

Bones has an odyssey one on his vette and it seems really good.
Someone suggested bosch to me as they do a 610cca/65ahr one for £65, but whether or not it fits I dunno.
3 or 5 year warrantee too.

That Bosch one will do in my 230TE.
DMS supply these?

[Geordie]

I've got a couple of Optima's. One a blue top marine one (which I got off a mate in the speedboat business!) that ran the Passat without a problem for a couple of years, and then moved into the Landy and prob been in there for two years now too (if not more). Never had a problem with it until lately, its gone flat but that's prob just due to not using the vehicle for ages and not charging it. Always managed to crank her over for a while in winter when using Bio and the bugger wouldn't start too.

I've now got a yellow top in the passat, and touch wood, never had a problem with it neither, always starts fine in the cold and tonnes of cranking power. Made a big difference from the standard battery too when the lights would dip under load from the subs.

If i remember correctly when looking for them previously yellow top is the one for ICE and more of a deep cycle as Tree said, and the red top is the one which gives loads all at once to start a big engine. Blue top is best of both worlds, but bloody hard to find and cost more.

[///AMG MERCINATOR]

I've got a couple of Optima's. One a blue top marine one (which I got off a mate in the speedboat business!) that ran the Passat without a problem for a couple of years, and then moved into the Landy and prob been in there for two years now too (if not more). Never had a problem with it until lately, its gone flat but that's prob just due to not using the vehicle for ages and not charging it. Always managed to crank her over for a while in winter when using Bio and the bugger wouldn't start too.

I've now got a yellow top in the passat, and touch wood, never had a problem with it neither, always starts fine in the cold and tonnes of cranking power. Made a big difference from the standard battery too when the lights would dip under load from the subs.

If i remember correctly when looking for them previously yellow top is the one for ICE and more of a deep cycle as Tree said, and the red top is the one which gives loads all at once to start a big engine. Blue top is best of both worlds, but bloody hard to find and cost more.

Woud'nt have a un-used one lying around would ya?

[Cret]

Cheers G

After looking around a lot I've decided on a Bosch S5004 (if I can get one!)

It's the same size as the old Exide one I have now, but 105CCA and 6AHR better than mine, and is a heavy duty version, plus I think was a 4 or 5 year warrantee. Just over £60 online but obviously the postage is the issue on something like this.

Anyone know if there is a local place that sells Bosche batteries at all? Don't mind paying a little more to get it locally and avoid the postage, but not if it's a pisstake price!!

[gazza_]

try sims auto elec.
they should be able to get you one i would think