I am really interested in putting.

ANONYMOUS

MEMBER
2009 DODGE CHARGER
18,000 MILES

Hi,
I am really interested in putting an optima battery in my car, but the recently replace exide the dealer prescribed was 77Ah and optima's biggest battery is 75Ah though optima has much higher cold cranking Ah than my present battery.
So what do you suggest will the 2Ah difference be equalized by alot cold cranking Ah & there wont be any problem in the car?

I will be reall grateful for your help on this matter.
Thank you

1 Reply

CARADIODOC

MECHANIC
33,871 POSTS

Cold cranking amps is the industry standard used to compare one battery to another. That refers to how much current it can deliver to the starter for a short period of time. Amp-hours refers to how long it can deliver a much smaller current to operate stuff like lights and the radio. That is not used when selecting a battery for starting the engine. If you plan on listening to the radio for days at a time without running the engine, one battery will run it a few hours longer. For the rest of us, we don't care about that.

A 650 cca battery is more than sufficient for most cars and is about what comes in most new cars. New batteries usually have a higher cca rating because it doesn't take much extra lead to increase its capacity, then they can charge more for it. That doesn't mean it will last longer.