John, you should start to have better luck out of NAPA batteries. There was a supplier change about a year ago. Exide's build quality and order fill rate had literally gone to crap. So, they fired Exide and went with East Penn. All NAPA's in the NE US were already using them with very good results. East Penn also manufactures Deka batteries.

The battery I gave Brendan was comped by my rep. He usually gives me several dozen to comp out every year. I buy roughly $75K in batteries annually, so all I have to do is ask...

The Liberator is an AGM sealed battery meant for commercial environments. It holds up real well against vibration, extreme temps and heavy loads/discharges. All of which are common in our vehicles... This is by no means meant to sway you away from Optima. Johnson Controls who makes Optimas manufactures a fine product. JC also makes Interstate and many "house brand" batteries, like IIRC O'Reilly's, Autozone's, Advance's and Sears'.