New Battery Time..No more Optima Red Top! Hello, O'Reilly AGM?

[joney]

The majority of us that use the AGM (Glass Matt type), use them for a couple of common reasons.
1) Wanted for Off Road purposes. 2) Have Accessories that have a heavy drain.

These typically can be bought with different uses in mind, and different styles are made, for a variety of uses.
ie.... Starting or Deep cycle units, or a combo of both, in a Dual battery.

They are all sealed units, and handle the abuse, we throw at them off road, much better than traditional lead units can.
Many more advantages to a sealed AGM unit, but these are the main reasons.

Update: Found out the previous owner put a battery in the Ex I now own, used for at least 3 years. Failed to hold a charge so ended up getting O'Reilly's non AGM battery 650 CCA (had to in a hurry). Will definitely consider an AGM whenever this one quits. As the Ex sits several days without me driving it in the winter, have to be concerned it doesn't run the lead-acid battery too far down. Seems if these run down completely, they are toast? Seems the AGM would be more amenable to re-charging after a complete discharge, will be looking up more on that.

 

[BKennedy]

I have the Explorer batteries hooked up to trickle chargers if it's going to sit for more than two weeks.

 

[CDW6212R]

I had two more batteries die last month, one was a 10 year old red top. It's best to buy a trickle charger to maintain any battery that won't be used for months at a time. I lost a Bosch AGM battery last Fall, and it was under two years old. That had been unused for about three months at a time. I swap batteries in a couple of cars that are on the street, after a couple of months if they don't start.

 

[gmanpaint]

Update: Found out the previous owner put a battery in the Ex I now own, used for at least 3 years. Failed to hold a charge so ended up getting O'Reilly's non AGM battery 650 CCA (had to in a hurry). Will definitely consider an AGM whenever this one quits. As the Ex sits several days without me driving it in the winter, have to be concerned it doesn't run the lead-acid battery too far down. Seems if these run down completely, they are toast? Seems the AGM would be more amenable to re-charging after a complete discharge, will be looking up more on that.

Not all AGM's can be fully discharged, and brought back to life. My Optima red tops all died after being drained completely, and couldn't be brought back. I refuse to buy them again, because of that. Personal thing!

I made the comment about the NorthStar AGM being able to survive a full discharge, to make a point that it is not like other AGM's that can't. Even with this upper end Battery, I still use a float charger on it, as it sits more than used.

 

[joney]

Not all AGM's can be fully discharged, and brought back to life. My Optima red tops all died after being drained completely, and couldn't be brought back. I refuse to buy them again, because of that. Personal thing!

I made the comment about the NorthStar AGM being able to survive a full discharge, to make a point that it is not like other AGM's that can't. Even with this upper end Battery, I still use a float charger on it, as it sits more than used.

Thanks for the clarification! And the mention of a float charger - looked that up, it's exactly what I need! Already have a 10A charger. Although I run my Ex at least once a week, between cranking at WOT to get the oil up in it, and the COLD temps I was more concerned I'd run it down trying to start it when it's well below zero.