Never seen THAT before...

[Hutch]

This is what passes for interesting...

The Director calls me to tell me the car won't crank, the battery is dead.   

I have it serviced pro-freshunnaly every 5k, so I seldom lift the hood on my Camry.  Whelp, I did, and there's the BIGGEST pile of blue corrosion on the positive terminal and clamp.  I start scraping it away (no gloves/goggles/apron) and the clamp disintegrates.  As we say in the Deep South "done broke half in two".

Gonna go back with an assortment of brushes, a can of Coke, a jug of rinse water,,and protective gear.

Damnit.

[griz]

Battery connections do very weird things.  The one that always puzzles me is when an apparently clean tight terminal has enough corrosion between the post and the connector to prevent starting.  How does that happen?

[K Frame]

That reminds me, I need to clean mine.

[Ben]

Yeah, a lot of places, especially dealerships, give a big song and dance about "multi-point inspections", but then never do half the stuff. I don't think I've ever seen my battery terminals cleaned.

On my truck, CA has this stupid law that shops have to adjust the air pressure on all tires to manufacturer recommendations, even if you only go in for a smog check or something. If it drives on their lot and they touch it, they have to do the air pressure. At my old shop, I always knew they did it because Ford calls for 75psi in the rear, which I only inflate to if I'm gonna haul something, otherwise I keep them at 60psi. I took it to the dealership at my dad's recently, and when I went to deflate the rear tires, found that they were still at 60psi.

I generally check all work anytime I take a vehicle in, even if it's pulling the dipstick after an oil change to make sure the level is correct.  I recently got new batteries for the truck, and because the dealership had a deal going on the batteries I wanted, I let them install them (dealership at my dad's again). I popped the hood to look at the batteries, and the driver's side battery wasn't even tied down. I let the service manager have a piece of my mind. I would not have been happy having a battery bounce around on my next long drive, and then having them try and make me responsible for the damage.

[230RN]

Emergency try-it-first trick if no other help or tools are available:  Phillips head screwdriver placed between the post and the clamp and given a moderately strong whack to smush the metal of the post and the clamp together at that point. Can be done with a straight shank screwdriver or a lot of other things.  Repeat every 90° around the connection.  120° if you're lazy.

[230RN]

Double post 

[Hutch]

Terry, we're wayyyy past that.  The clamp is in two pierces.  I found a YouTube that is the same failure point, without all the bearscat.

http://youtu.be/cNSa_BfwBXI

[brimic]

This is what passes for interesting...

The Director calls me to tell me the car won't crank, the battery is dead.   

I have it serviced pro-freshunnaly every 5k, so I seldom lift the hood on my Camry.  Whelp, I did, and there's the BIGGEST pile of blue corrosion on the positive terminal and clamp.  I start scraping it away (no gloves/goggles/apron) and the clamp disintegrates.  As we say in the Deep South "done broke half in two".

Gonna go back with an assortment of brushes, a can of Coke, a jug of rinse water,,and protective gear.

Damnit.

I had the exact same thin happen with a nissan. Cut the ends off the battery cables and replaced with lead terminal ends from parts store, never had a problem again.

[mtnbkr]

Peel back the insulation and make sure the corrosion didn't migrate down the cable.  I had that happen on my 4Runner.  It ate up several inches of cable.  I cut off the bad part and grafted in a new section of cable and clamp, not fun at 10pm in a cramped garage.

Chris

[Hawkmoon]

Yeah, a lot of places, especially dealerships, give a big song and dance about "multi-point inspections", but then never do half the stuff. I don't think I've ever seen my battery terminals cleaned.

My brother used to work as a service manager in a dealership. Those multi-point inspections aren't for you -- they are for the "technicians" to find more things the service writer is supposed to tell the customer need to be done. It's called "up-selling." My brother told me he used to have heated arguments with some techs because he insisted they diagnose the problem for which the car was brought in before they started the list of up-sell work.

[BobR]

Peel back the insulation and make sure the corrosion didn't migrate down the cable.  I had that happen on my 4Runner.  It ate up several inches of cable.  I cut off the bad part and grafted in a new section of cable and clamp, not fun at 10pm in a cramped garage.

Chris

Probably more fun than on the side of the road, at 3am, in the rain, on a moonless night and all you have for illumination is a box of matches and a candle. Hey, at least without a moon the werewolves won't be out looking for a meal. 

bob

[Boomhauer]

Battery cable corrosion like that is pretty common. Once you cut off the bad section and put a new terminal on, make sure the connection at the other end is clean and tight, make sure the cable isn't breaking down. Put some dielectric grease on the terminals to try to keep them clean and dry. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ze7pzrhRIs

The Ranger I drove at the last job was bad about battery cable corrosion.

My brother used to work as a service manager in a dealership. Those multi-point inspections aren't for you -- they are for the "technicians" to find more things the service writer is supposed to tell the customer need to be done. It's called "up-selling." My brother told me he used to have heated arguments with some techs because he insisted they diagnose the problem for which the car was brought in before they started the list of up-sell work

We have pre-work inspections where we inspect the machine and take oil samples of all compartments (engine, final drive, hydraulic oil, swing drive, transmission, differentials, etc)...our shop covers those costs of the inspection (which can take a couple hours) and oil samples. Is upselling? Yes, but the big reasons I do it is because it catches a lot of problems before they develop into major issues and also the inspection lets us note any damage that is present so we don't get blamed for something we did not do.

If I was an auto mechanic I would not start work on a vehicle without doing a prework inspection and noting found defects. Too many people these days try to get *expletive deleted*it for free by saying "ever since you did x, y doesn't work" when you weren't anywhere near component y.

[cassandra and sara's daddy]

Yes people do try to hustle to get something for free I do a video walkthrough the house when I start work and note any known defects as far as drywall dings scratches in floors so they can't claim I put them there

[Jamisjockey]

One of my neighbors at the last house had that happen to his wife.  Being the shiftworker neighborhood handyman guy, i got roped into helping her.  It was disintegrated, and I had to go get new leads, strip, attach, and that did it. 

[41magsnub]

My Mom's old Subaru legacy did that.  I caught it before it got to the point of snapping in half, but when I found that a battery clamp was missing half of the metal I replaced it.

There was an issue overall in that model year (and I am probably going to explain this wrong because it was never adequately explained to me), but the grounding was not correctly done.  The negative current was passing through the headers, the head gasket, and into the engine block which was contributing to early head gasket failure. 

That car needed a new head gasket at 30K miles on the one side (we did both).  The dealer did the replacement out of warranty at cost.  The fact that it was driven every day for 10 years and still only had 30K miles contributed to that.

[K Frame]

"Being the shiftworker shiftless neighborhood handyman guy pervo"

Fixed it for you.

[brimic]

There was an issue overall in that model year (and I am probably going to explain this wrong because it was never adequately explained to me), but the grounding was not correctly done.  The negative current was passing through the headers, the head gasket, and into the engine block which was contributing to early head gasket failure. 

I've heard that as reasoning for subaru head gasket failure and that its extremely important to keep the terminals clean on those cars.

[K Frame]

Damn. Never heard that before. I am going to clean them today...

I do know that the 1995-2003 generation cars were prone to blow head gaskets around 120,000 miles, but I've never heard that about other years.

[French G.]

Subaru 4 banger of that vintage is guaranteed head gasket failure. But my 6 keeps chugging along. Grounding horrendous on that too, I ran a 2nd ground from the mount lug of the alternator to the neg. post of the battery. Cured a lot of stupid crap, probably be my favorite prophylactic fix on future cars too. Advance Auto swears that my 2 year old alternator is defective and that the one it replaced tested good. So why, other than weaseling out of warranty on a month old alternator,  does the bad one start and run fine through two winters while the "good" one would not function for two days?

[brimic]

https://allwheeldriveauto.com/subaru-head-gasket-problems-explained/

Electrical problems look like at least a contributing factor....

[KD5NRH]

I had the exact same thin happen with a nissan. Cut the ends off the battery cables and replaced with lead terminal ends from parts store, never had a problem again.

Yup.  Stamped steel clamps are just plain dumb.  $6 at the local hardware store buys a pair of lead ones that outlasted every car I've done that on.

Also, FWIW, after last month's Stephenville-McAllen-Stephenville-Georgetown-Stephenville-Arlington-Stephenville round, the Saturn is getting unnervingly close to the 300,000 miles I'd set as my goal to make it last through.  As in 292,500 last night.