Hello, I noticed your conversation involving our products and wanted to offer some assistance. As petehoovie indicated, our 6-volt batteries have gotten slightly taller over the years and you can thank the Volkswagen Eos convertible for that change. Those cars came from the factory with a pair of 6-volt YELLOWTOP batteries that had to have provisions for external venting, because of where they were located in the vehicles. That meant a new mold for a taller lid that has a vent port and changes to the existing machines to accommodate the new lid.
Unfortunately, that means our 6-volt batteries no longer fit in some applications, but the good news is that we're still making them, thanks in large part to the business generated by the Volkswagen Eos. Even with that business, we still routinely find ourselves fighting for the 6-volt, because it is so different than our other batteries, that it requires quite a bit more to manufacture them. That combined with very low demand makes it hard to make a case to continue production. We'd rather not increase prices at all, because we know they are expensive already, but if the alternative to bumping up the price a few bucks is to discontinue production entirely and forever, we'd rather raise the price.
Because they are such a low volume product, it's really hard for us to get many of our brick & mortar retailers to carry them. I know that makes a lot of people turn to the Internet, but I can't emphasize enough how bad an idea it is to buy a car battery off sites like eBay or Craigslist. The only people who handle warranty claims on our products are the retailers who sell them and they only service the products they sell.
There are no authorized OPTIMA retailers selling on eBay or Craigslist, so the batteries being sold there may or may not have warranty coverage and if they do, you'll have to track down that seller and ship it back to them for service. We hear from people every week, who thought they found a better deal on those sites, only to find out they were sold a used battery or an unused five-year old battery or the seller didn't use approved packaging when they shipped and the battery showed up damaged. Regardless of the circumstances, when they get to the point of contacting us, they never get an answer they want to hear, because we only provide warranty service on batteries we sell directly (and we do sell 6-volt batteries on our website).
Jim McIlvaine
eCare Manager, OPTIMA Batteries
www.pinterest.com/optimabatteries