I take it no one runs optima blue tops anymore or never have?

I have. They would be my second choice after Duracell (Deka)

I made that mistake once.

If you buy Optima, don't order them from their website. They are a royal PITA to exchange if your battery goes bad. Local Optima dealers do not support batteries bought from the website, but Optima wants a test and printout from the local dealer in order to exchange. I went to the dealer after charging the battery and he couldn't get a test run. Told the Optima support lady what happened and she told me to take it back and have them charge it and run the test again.

You should be able to take the dang battery to where they are sold and get an exchange.

I got fed up with their process and told them thanks for convincing me to never buy an Optima product again. Replaced it with a Walmart battery.

I have four Gp 31Ms in my boat. Best batteries I've ever had. But, you have to take care of them. Just like any battery, if the owner doesn't care to learn how to maintain them, they won't last.

Other than automatic charging Lithiums have no maintenance not like any other battery. In seven years I have never cleaned a terminal, added water, charged over two hours, cleaned the boat from acid residue, replaced a battery tray or replaced a battery.
I use Lithiums every day at work and have yet to have one fail. Have had lots of the brushed motors wear out.
My family drives Lithiums every day and never had a failure.(100k miles) Only maintenance on those is washer fluid and tires.
I work on cars and drive Lithiums. They are the future.

Uh sounds like your a talking about cars. We are talking about lithium marine batteries.

Ummm....probably. My wife's Lexus has about $4000 worth of the damn things in the rear floor of it. Ask me how I know they only last about 65k miles. Haha.

Because of the hybrid systems batteries, she wants to buy a new car ....again.....without the batteries and several thousand dollar regenerative braking system.

Your wife's Lexus is not a Lithium Battery. It is a nickel metal hydride.
I was talking boats then went to cars. Sorry if I did not make that clear.
Haters are going to hate but blanket statements about the anything generally are not fair. All motors are bad because yours blew up. All batteries are bad because yours failed. My point was they work well for me in my boat,cars,tools and toys. Have a great Holiday season

that's funny. I just didn't think it would be a "blanket" statement since it was posted in the bass fishing section of a fishing forum. I honestly haven't seen to many post about tools are cars in this part of the forum. I apologize for hurting your feelings. Merry Christmas

I believe that they are the future, but they won�t be in the future for most of us until they come way down in cost.

Initial cost is high but coming down. The technology is changing and getting cheaper and better. If I get 15 yrs out of the batteries at 2100 cost thats 140 per year. I spent more than that on the flooded/agm setups. long run it is probably close to a cost wash. The other benefits make it a win for my application. We will see electric boats and trucks before long. The baddest UTV and car are all electric.