I bought an Optima 34R Red Top battery a few months ago to replace my 7 year old stock battery that was starting to go bad. Now after only a few months the Optima doesn't seem to hold a charge.

I have a second job in the evenings delivering pizza and often leave my GPS and Sirius tuner turned on between deliveries. Sometimes they're both powered on for close to an hour without the vehicle running. Is this enough time to discharge the battery? And is it causing damage?

I have the Sirius Sportster Replay tuner. I usually pause whatever I'm listening to when I finish a delivery and come back to it later. That's why I leave it powered on. I'm not sure how much current it draws but I don't think it's very much.

My GPS is the Magellan Meridian Platinum. I don't think it pulls much juice since 4 AAs usually last about 8 hours and I never had problems running it off my old battery.

Basically, as long as I put some miles on my 4Runner every day, the battery stays charged enough to start - although it often seems sluggish. However, if it sits for a day, it just barely starts. Sometimes I have to turn off everything to get it to turn over enough to fire. I haven't been stranded yet, but it seems like it's coming. Any advice?

 

my optima was draining due to poor terminal connections. I went to advance and bought some bling bling terminals and BAM..problem solved!

 

You have already diagnosed your problem. That combined with the 500w rms monoblock you are using. You have light dimming dont you? Red tops are NOT where it's at... Getcha a blue top or yellow top and have some FUN!