my place carries those, we havent had any issues. 8004-003 is our most popular part number, we sell 8-10 a month. If the place you purchased from doesnt move them or if they dont rotate the stock, then you might have gotton an old one. You should always check the date code of a battery before you buy, the date code works like this(on Optima): 1st digit is the year (8=2008) the next 3 digits are the day of the year (005 is the 5th of january, 032 is feb 1st and so on) this is the date of shipping, not the date of manufacture.
All of the batteries I have here are coded 8205, which is in July I think 205th day of 2008, (this is where it gets complicated with my elementary math skills) and I have one 8175 (June?) and the 8175 is sitting on the front of the shelf so that it sells first, If I kept throwing new batteries out in front of the 8175 for say a year and 3 months, it would still be sitting there in September 2009 and some lucky bastard might buy it, the he'll get all the way home before he discovers he also got a free bag of issues with his purchase.