hi all,
just wondering if anyone here, in the collective cleverness, had any thoughts on a particular battery best suited to the rx8 ?
i drive mine once a week not good for batteries it seems

i read an optima yellow top is good for this type of use, anyone had one ?

should i take a terminal off during the week ? would that be doing the battery a favor ?
the car is nice and safe, so an alarm isnt a priority

anyone with anything to suggest or wanna think out loud, glad to hear it

now i wait,.......

cheers

 

InterState has always been solid for me. No reason to pay more (or less).

Nothing extra to do for only a week's inactivity. For a month long duration or more I use a trickle charger, as there is some drain by the security system, etc.

 

I have the "red top" and like you, I only drive it on weekends. No problems with it

 

From the research I have done, Optima and Odyssey are both good brands. If you are going to just use it to drive your car, i would get a redtop over a yellowtop. From what I understand, the yellowtop is mainly used for applications where you will be drawing a lot of current from the battery while the car is off, such as a high-end audio system.

Also, kind of going to piggyback off of this thread so I don't need to make a new one since it involves the same topic. I was looking into both the Optima RedTop and the Odyssey batteries to do an upgrade from stock. Is there really any advantage in doing this if the car is completely stock? (for now)

Jason

 

Other than being truly "maintenance free"; probably not.

 

Tim,

Driving once a week shouldn't be a problem. I've done that regularly since owning mine for coming up to 4 years now and other than replacing the battery, starter motor and plugs as part of the 'hard to start' de facto recall/warranty fix, I've had no issues whatsoever with battery life.

If your car is an '03 or '04 model, I suggest you look into whether the 'hard to start' fix has ever been performed. The early batteries, starter motors and plugs don't seem to have been up to the task.

Otherwise, I'd suggest you have some kind of power drainage problem, because your frequency of use shouldn't be flattening the battery.

 

All the above are good choices. I have researched this particular matter last month because my "free" battery upgrade went dead. It was a shocking 650CCA Exide Advantage or something ... **** battery from Mazda.

I have gone top of the range Exide Orbital from Spain. They are massive 750 CCA (cold crank amp) and yet it is much lighter than the old dead battery. Comes in at 18kg.

Here is my blog (new blog hehe)
http://taka-rx8.blogspot.com/2008/08...al-750cca.html

Optima yellow top is good, but at 650CCA is 16.5kg and 750CCA is 19.5kg.

Odyssey you need 1200 model, which is a 550CCA and 17kg.

For cars that do not do a lot of miles, CCA is quite important. I like the Exide Orbital because there is an extra point besides the terminal attachment that you can put the charger in. That may be critical for once a week excitement.

Well they don't come cheap. My obital is $300.

 

1200? I think I might be looking at the wrong battery... I was looking at the Odyssey PC1400. What group # is the RX8?

 

1400 .... That is even bigger battery. 700+CCA. 20kg+.

Just make sure it can fit into the box though.

As long as you are not getting the light weight motorcycle 680. You are ok... I yet to see something with 600+ CCA and small and light... maybe I am not searching well enough. Please let me know if you do.

Anyhow I always fear of small battery if I don't drive that often. Someone has to enlighten me otherwise. Gel battery once it is flat I was told it is hard to bring it back to where it was. So if you are away more than 1 week ===> charger stand by.

 

Got it. Yeah, I know for me if I am out of town and don't drive my car for a week, the stock Mazda battery is completely dead. Thus my reason for replacement.

 

I use a very small PULSE battery. it's about 4" x 7" and $130.

it hasn't missed a beat in the last year and shows no sign of quitting. I have the alternator 20% under-driven at the moment and the car is stationary all weekend with the doors open and closing, lights on and off the occasional start and stop while I work on the car: on Monday morning if fires up easily. the only thing I don't do is play music but I do have a lap-top, another engine management and lots of gauges running.
I'm just amazed at the battery!

 

hey thanks everyone,
there`s some great info there, so its big CCA for cars driven intermittently, i`ll use that as a factor, might get a trickle charger too
pulse battery sounds great too,
thanks Dave i`ll ring mazda and try find out if my car`s had the "hard start" fix, i guess if it isnt marked "done"in a database somewhere, they might do it at the next service.
the last time i drove it, it was raining, perhaps water got between some contacts, drawing a current. but it has been really cold, batteries normally die in winter, its more than likely to be the original battery, so time for a new one !

possibly the optima red, or exide orbital, thanks takahashi, your well informed as always, 16.5 kilo optima yellow looks good too

cheers folks, thanks for the leads ! ..........

 

Do you know how much that pulse battery weighs?

 

it's about the same as the odyssey equivalent (pc-680). about 7kg from memory? it has a steel jacket which adds to the weight.

 

You need to get a job at Weight Watchers Matt - fair dinkum, you'd sniff out a weight loss trick anywhere...