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How old is my OPTIMA car battery?
Type the date code from the OPTIMA label to see when it was built. OPTIMA units are built by Clarios, so the serials follow that company's format.
Reading a OPTIMA serial number
The first digit is the last digit of the year and the next three are the day of the year. 6086 is the 86th day of 2026, March 27.
OPTIMA says round stickers are store inventory stickers. They can be a year or more off, so do not use them to date the battery.
About OPTIMA
- OPTIMA’s spiral-cell design came from Gates Rubber in Denver, which built the first OPTIMA batteries in 1987.
- Gates sold OPTIMA in the early 1990s. Johnson Controls bought it in 2000, and its battery unit became Clarios in 2019.
- Since July 2007 every OPTIMA battery has been built in Monterrey, Mexico. The brand’s offices are in Glendale, Wisconsin.
Sources: Brand History | 40+ Years of Battery Innovation | OPTIMA Batteries, When Did OPTIMA Batteries Move to Mexico?
Year digit and day of the year
Used current OPTIMA labels. Example: 6086123456
The serial on the white "Non-Spillable" label has 10 digits. The first digit is the last digit of the year and the next three are the day of the year. 6086 means the 86th day of 2026, March 27.
Worked example: 6086123456 fits March 26, 2016 or March 27, 2026. The page above explains how to tell which.
Sources: OPTIMA: where is the date code on OPTIMA batteries, Challenge Batteries: battery part numbers and date codes (PDF), Batteries In A Flash: how to read battery date codes