[TR] Group 49 battery preferred?

[nwolf at u.washington.edu]

Hi Paul and Mike

>Paul,
>Once upon a time, I decided that battery quality was related to amount of
>lead and therefore price and therefore weight. I ran around allover town
>weighing size 27 batteries. I found HUGE weight discepancies. As I recall, it
>ranged from 30 to 65 lbs for teh same size battery.
>Mike Moore

   This reminds me of the legend of why cheddar cheese is orange.  Long ago, the story goes, the natural color of this cheese varied from off-white to yellow depending on what the cows ate.  Consumers at some point decided that the more brightly colored cheese was better, and selected that.  Maybe it tasted better, or maybe it was just the fashion.  In any case, the manufacturers caught on, started adding a little bit of dye (annatto), the baseline shifted, things got carried away, and now almost all Cheddar is bright orange, with no correlation (or perhaps a negative one?) between color and quality.
   So, does this mean we're headed toward 80-Lb ballast-filled batteries?  I hope not.  ;)

   In any case, since we're talking about non-original batteries anyway, I'll make the usual pitch for spending a bit more to get a sealed battery like an Optima.  You can thank me later when your battery tray isn't rusted through like most of them out there.  The Group 34 red-top is the one to get, or the yellow-top if you have deep-cycle tendencies.

Optima specs (redtop/yellowtop):
minimum weight = 38 Lbs/44 Lbs
cca = 800/750
RC = 100/120
c/20 = 50 Ah/55 Ah
LxWxH = 10" x 6 7/8" x 7 13/16"/ditto

   No, they don't pay me for this.  :)  It just makes me sad whenever I see good cars with holes under the battery.

-Nick Wolf
1962-ish TR4  (Optima red-top)
2000 New Beetle TDI  (dunno... it's buried under the plastic)