Optima, Odessey, Interstate, OEM or Wal Mart? Red, Blue or Pink? Starter or Deep Cycle?
Know what your need is, not what others are buying (or what color matches your cold air intake)
Here are a few things I would consider when looking at batteries (scavenged from several places off the web):
1) An engine starting battery on average has only about 10 deep cycles (100% discharges) available when recharged by an alternator. So if you have a typical starter type battery, they are designed to stay charged, always. That is not to say that there aren't exceptions, just stating the intended usages.
2) Cold cranking amps (CCA) is a measurement of the number of amps a battery can deliver at 0 ? F for 30 seconds and not drop below 7.2 volts. So a high CCA battery rating is good especially in cold weather.
3) CA is cranking amps measured at 32 degrees F. This rating is also called marine cranking amps (MCA). Hot cranking amps (HCA) is seldom used any longer but is measured at 80 ? F.
4) Reserve Capacity (RC) is a very important rating. This is the number of minutes a fully charged battery at 80 ? F will discharge 25 amps until the battery drops below 10.5 volts.
5) An amp hour (AH) is a rating usually found on deep cycle batteries. If a battery is rated at 100 amp hours it should deliver 5 amps for 20 hours, 20 amps for 5 hours, etc.
For practical example, an EP9.0 is rated for 350 amps at capacity, 9000 lbs. A 90Ah battery will have approxamately 15 min. of pure winching, nearly 100ft., before 100% discharge state. The cool thing is, unlike the starting battery which was designed for 10+/- 100% discharges, the deep cycle in this example is designed for upwards of 300 100% discharges.
This was not intended to be a recommendation for any type of battery, just sharing info. Like all things in life, ask questions, take notes, but make an informed decision. Don't follow a crowd. If we did, we would all be driving jeeps ... Ooops.
