Din

I alwasy thought the battery only starts the car, while you car is running it runs of the alternator. So if your lights are dimming you may want to get a cap or a higher output alt.

cliffud

iTrader: (3)

There are different reasons for purchasing each battery.

As some of the earlier posters mentioned, the yellow top will last a months w/o a start and can start up your ride.

-If you have a summer cottage somewhere and you drive your car only a few months out of the year, this battery is for you.

-If you tend to run your battery for long periods of time w/o recharging it up (hanging out and bumping your stereo for extended periods of time) then this battery is for you.

I personallly have a yellow top battery that I got for free from the shop that installed my stereo because an evap cooler was blowing exhaust air onto the car during the install and it was caked in calcium deposits when I picked it up.

The red top battery is for starting some big engines. As much as we'd like to say our lexus motors are 'big engines' and that it takes a lot to start them up, they are relatively very easy to start compared to diesel engines. My first car was a Mercedes 300D and it went through traditional batteries like crazy. Solved that problem with a red top battery because of the massive number of available amps for starting up the diesel beast of an engine.

Some may say - 'well, I run a lot of components in my car'. If that's the case, then I would go with the yellow top battery because if you crank the stereo a ton, you'll be exhausting those amps out of your battery faster than they can be recharged (unless you pick up the alternator upgrade on CL).

I did some research to fully explain the differences and this is what I found:

Keep in mind when you read this that 'starter type batteries' are red and 'dual-purpose deep cycle/starter batteries' are yellow.

Optima offers two basic battery types: Optima starter type batteries, and Optima dual-purpose deep cycle/starter batteries. The Optima starter type batteries are superior replacement units for your car, truck, boat, or other vehicle. Optima deep cycle/starter batteries serve dual purposes: They function very well as starter batteries, but they also are designed to withstand repeated deep discharging (down to a charge level of 10.5 volts) without having their life span shortened. This ability makes them especially useful when electrical loads exceed recharge rate (including times when the battery cannot be recharged at all, such as for marine trolling motors, or for running car audio equipment with your engine turned off.) Optima deep cycle batteries are very popular for marine trolling motors, winches, special lighting, portable power, and emergency backup systems of all types. If you need high performance power for car audio, the best battery for you is one or more of the largest Optima deep cycle/starter batteries you can fit in.

The web site I found this information on also has a list of deep-cycle applications.

Common Deep Cycle Applications:
Performance audio
Trolling motors
Portable lighting
Winches Inverter power
Security system backup
Sump pump backup
RV/Camping power

Source: http://www.1st-optima-batteries.com/

Hope all this helps.


Clifford

cliffud

iTrader: (3)

A capacitor or higher output alternator will work.

Adding a capacitor will be the most cost effective route. If you're running under 1,000 watts of power in your entire system you'll be able to get away with a 1 farad capacitor.

UptownGS

I dont think I will be going the Capacitor route... its just a bandaid covering the real problem and I'd just rather shell out an extra few bucks to upgrade the alternator.