The Optima Red Top battery has taken a dump as has a number of them over the past year. After jumping it - it would appear that it's relearning it's fuel trims?
It idles up as soon as I pop it in gear and usually settles down by the time I've left the neighborhood.

Yesterday - I drove 7 miles and she wouldn't settle down. I was on the highway and I put it in neutral and it jumped up to 3500 RPM! I pulled it over to make sure I didn't have a dead squirrel or cat or whatever lodged into the throttle Turning off the car and back on resolved it and I was able to drive it home with no further incident.

I thought that I'd throw this out to the group to see what in the world is going on. I was actually logging at the time in case someone wants to see the log.

 

PCMs do funny funny things when their voltage is not correct and or clean. An alternator is meant to maintain a battery not charge a dead battery. It's hell on alternators especially the dinky little ones these cars come with. When the batterys dead they charge wide open that's what kills the alternators. IF it just got jumped off I would be inclined to say a voltage induced glitch those are the kind that can fry a pcm. A jump start is terrible for electronics in newer cars bad bad idea.

I used red tops for years on dailys with very good luck but on cars that get driven intermittently and sit for a long period of time I have found the yellow tops hold up better over the long run with way less failures.

 

Agreed - Fortunately I have a 220A alternator with big 3. This is also my daily driver. I use a battery jump starter (NOCO GB40). I won't go anywhere without it. My C6's red top lasted a year and a half. I've since kept a battery tender on the replacement battery and they're known for having a lot of parasitic current draw.
My wife's `99 Suburban that is driven 3 or 4 times a week, had a red top that didn't last 2 years. I've got one in my `79 Firebird that I never drive, but it's on a tender.

As for the PCM, it's fine - she fired up fine this morning for it's daily 80 mile drive.

 

I've ran optimas since the mid 90s and man I tell you I have not been happy at all with them lately they are just so damm hit or miss. I have a 4 year old optima in my service truck that has 140K on that battery never missed a lick yet. My 6.2 truck that I mostly drive on weekends I had to go to yellows in it. I'll put several hundred miles on it in a weekend and it sits late sunday usually through about now and a bit over a year is all I've managed on the reds and they do exactly like you are describing.

Now on my other company trucks I've been using the napa and oreillys AGM batterys and those have been pretty dang legit even when guys kill the hell out of em they seem to hold up.

 

I have an AGM battery in my Miata. Those tend to need to be replaced every year or two. The regular flooded lead battery tends to last longer.

 

I too have a Napa AGM in my C6. I had to replace the red top in that one last Spring. Even with it, I have to keep a tender on it if I don't drive more than once per week.
The TA was dead again this morning and as soon as I put it in gear, she reved right up. Sigh .... Since I plan on driving it tomorrow, I'd better drive it around the hood today so it can relearn? it's trims?

 

Sometimes you can use jumper cables from your AGM to a charged battery and then place the charger on the good battery and the charge will travel to the dead AGM and revive it.

 

Not so much on the LS1 cars but the biggest thing that kills the batteries isn't batteries. It's just flat all of the electronics they use on these newer data bus systems and modules that never really go to sleep and wake up all the time. This biggest offender is comstar pull the fuse on that data stealing pos and that takes care of a lot of dead battery problems on these newer ones. Same things on the fords yank fuse on the wifi and the data modules. '
Granted our what now seem old time Fbodies aren't affected by the huge amount of modules the newer cars have but the bcm on them still comes and goes outta sleep mode every few hours too especially when it sees keyless entry signals near the rolling code number of what it's after to either lock unlock or trunk pop. Thats what eats damm batteries.

 

That seems to be the case with all those modules on that CAN bus on the C6. I've never had battery issues on the Trans Am until I went to the red top. I can't recall if I've had one prior to this one. Once starts to loose track seeing that she has 407,000 miles.

 

Nothing better than putting miles on your favorite cars GM made plenty of em so may as well enjoy. That's probably one of if not the highest mileage fbody I've heard about in discussion on here.

 

I've seen this before right after a battery has been replaced or when power was disconnected/reconnected. I just simply shut it off then start it back up and it's fine and never does it again.

 

I'm blown away at the mileage as well. I've been dailying her since 2002.... and it's been an absolute joy. I hope I can get to 750,000 miles before I croak.

 

It did it to me this morning. Damn thing was shoving me down the road until I got to the gas station. Battery time. The Optima Yellow tops have crap for reviews ...... not sure what I'm going to - battery wise.

 

Ive bought every brand and type of battery. I use to care what brand but I’m at a point now I literally don’t care what battery I buy. I guess running a shop does that to you. I’ve seen every brand fail early; I’ve also seen every brand make it 10+ years.

Currently the oldest batteries I have are some exide batteries I have in a wrecker. 13 years old going strong.
But I have a second wrecker with some Exide batteries that are 6 months old dead as roadkill.

its not the batteries, its the vehicles.

Get the yellow top of u want it. Eff the reviews.

 

I wound up going with another Red Top but also added 30.00 for 3 year warranty. I never do that. I figure if I can get 3 years for a battery under 300, I guess I'll take it.

 

For some odd reason my batteries in the TA seem to last in the 7 year range. I found the best value batteries are at Rural King. Not sure on longevity but since they all come from 4 manufacturers, there's at least a 25% chance it's made by a good company.

 

Ok I haven't bought a red top in 4 years. Did I read that right they rape you on the price and if you want a 3 year warranty you gotta pay for it. FML they just never finish digging in our pockets these day's every last damm entity pokes us harder.

 

I can report The Red top battery in my Camaro is 6 years old and still going strong even with a 25% UD pulley. I’m sure you will get 3 years no problem. 👍

 

I swapped out the red top this past weekend and was concerned about the fuel trims being reset along with the high idle issue. It didn't happen. Interesting. Also, in the 20 plus years of driving this car, I can always tell when the battery is going - weeks or even months prior. It's not even a slow crank, it's the gauges that all click over to the right and the odometer resets when starting it.

I've many battery failures over the past 3 years and 250ish seems to be the price for another battery.