Well this wasn't my idea of a 4th of July firework but its what I got. I was ready to go out last night and as I went to start my car, as soon as turned the key I heard a real loud bang followed by lots of smoke coming out from around the hood. The first thought going through my head was someone threw a large firework at my car (M80 size) and went off. I jumped out the car not knowing if it was on fire or not but realized the smoke was coming from inside the hood. Once I lifted the hood I see pieces of broken plastic around the battery. As I lifted the broken pieces of plastic I could see that the battery had completely blown up. I could see the battery acid sizzling on the metal battery plate and I hurried to take the battery out as I did not want any of the wires getting messed up. Scared the hell out of me but didn't look like it did to much damage other than the battery itself. Anyone heard of this before? Well I guess I am looking to upgrade now to the Optima Yellow Top. Any suggestions? Thanks in advance. Heres some pics:

 

Same happened to me once.
Old battery, low on water, plate collapsed and shorted out causing a rapid boil in a sealed plastic box till boom Acid all over the place.
Thought all Euro cars came stock with a vented bat .
Should pick up some nutralizer as soon as posible or the acid may get a chance to eat through the paint and or worse get to the metal.

 

Haven't checked the water level in the battery recently huh?


I would go buy LOTS of baking soda, and wash the entire engine bay/surrounding body panels with it NOW! That or look forward to some nasty paint stains.

Oh yeah, Optimas will never do that.

 

Well when it happened last night I took the time to clean it up as best as possible. The acid did not get on any of the body panels nor did it get anywhere on the outside of the car. It was mostly in the battery compartment and on the battery plate itself. But I will do a better clean up now just in case.

 

Sorry to hear what happened I just learned something. I want to put a yellow top in my 2001 C2, is there any modification to be done since the yellow is smaller than factory one? Can someone that has one installed please explain?
Mike

 

Never see that on a 996/986.

That is the standard Moll lead/acid battery, and such a battery generates a gas which is explosive. But that battery has a vent tube. And even then you would need a source of ignition/spark to set off.

 

damn... thank god you didnt burn your house down... whats up with P-car batteries, they suck!

 

that is crazzzyyyy. holy ****!

 

I had a similar thing happened in a Honda Accord some years back.
Loud gunshot when I turned the key, and I actually ducked in my seat! LOL!
Then I saw thick white smoke out from under the hood.
You're lucky it didn't damage your hood, my hood was damaged from the blast.
Good thing I was at the mall, so I grabbed a new battery from Sears.

After that experience, I have to give some respect to batteries, before that, when people tell me they can explode, I was like "oh ok..."

 

That sucks ***, good luck with the new one

 

My buddy had one blow up in his S500 and recieved a multi miollion dollar award for damages to his back when he jumped after the explosion.

 

Porsche batteries suck I hope you don't have problems because of it.

 

Sorry to hear that, Porsche must get their batteries from DELL!

 

Hey, I've used 3 Dell desktops (still using 2) and I've not had any problems with them. In fact, my next desktop will be another Dell.

 

Interesting...I wonder if the vent hose was connected to the battery vent? I can imagine trying to be all cool with a date and BAM...battery explodes! "Ummm...I guess were getting a taxi..."

Hope no other problems pop up...