Optima Yellow Top Replacement and restart issues

Hello all-

I recently replaced my stock battery (almost 8 years later) with Optima yellow top battery.

Since the replacement, it looks like I have some issues.

1. The battery does not seem like fully charged. I originally charged outside the car with DieHard battery charger (Purchased at Sears Auto - 12V and 4amp Charging). The reason I feel that way is when I start the car it does not seem like it starts instantly.

2. I was away for 4 days and I came back and started the car, it did start but initially the display showed no MPH i.e. blank. I after pressing the start button, turning off GPS display screen etc. the cart fully started (Ready mode).
3. Next day I took my car to work (@8 miles one way) and while coming back I had pretty much same thing happen in #2. Later car started by the half of the display where it shows the Car Picture with battery/ICE status remained dark. Car worked fine overall though (driving etc.). I wonder that is due to low voltage on 12V battery when starting.

Anyway,

1. Is this something wrong with the battery? OR I need to go for a long drive to get the battery is good state?
2. Is this due to charger that I used originally (DieHard)?

I just orderd INNOVA 3320 Auto-Ranging Digital Multimeter to check the battery voltage and also ordered CTEK (56-864) MUS 4.3 12 Volt Fully Automatic 8 Step Battery Charger as I heard that is a very good charger.

Should I charge the battery again with this above charger?

Thanks for any inputs.

 

Thanks for the reply. It just half the display that is dark. I am going to go out again so I will check whether it comes back fine. I think it should. It happened once before.

 

Hi Guys-

Sorry to bring this old thread up but same Optima battery I had issues with, I have it in my garage charging with my ctek charger for months. Yesterday I re-tried replacing my original battery (9+ years old) with the same optima battery. After replacing the battery, I tried to start the car and it never got into ready mode. All dash lights, displays started but no MPH number (0) and no ready status.

Tried multiple times but the same.

As a last shot, I tried jump starting the car but to my surprise my car did not jump start. This is very strange because my stock battery has given me trouble in the past and I have jump started my car many times.

Finally I got frustrated and put my old battery back and my car started immediately.

I have Innova multimeter and I did stress test on battery at 12V setting and it showed the battery was good. Voltage seated on about 13.25 V.

Anyway, is my optima battery bad? Is it possible that voltage on my optima is fine but it is not supplying enough current to start the car? Can I check with my multumeter? How much current it's required to start the car?

Also, is there any reason car did not respond to jump start when optima battery was installed?

Too many questions but thanks in advance. If optima is bad I just want to make sure before I dump it.

 

It may be overstated by the multimeter. How do I make sure my optima is bad before I discard it. Looks like wasted money on it.

 

I had bought it from about a year ago from JET.Com so not sure about the warranty. I had done the test over a week to check the voltage and it looked fine. Do pepboys or autozone do free battery test? I heard that somewhere. I will take it there over the weekend.