Has anyone seen this issue. - battery terminals keep getting corrosion? I have to clean them about every 4 months or the car will not start.
Have been putting battery terminal spray on the terminals.
Owned the car for 25 years and never had this issue.
Been using the same batteries for last 10 years - Costco Interstate.

My confusion is that nothing has really changed but this corrosion issue is one that keeps cropping up. (Dont get me wrong life could be way more difficult.)

Thanks ahead of time.

 

In my experience, if you clean everything and I mean 100%, you’ll just have periodic maintenance as far corrosion. Pull the battery and clean it, the tray, under the tray, and whatever is on the body. Repaint under the tray. As far as a no start condition, I would check all my cables, cable connections, and ground points. Corrosion itself won’t cause a no start condition every 4 months. If you still have original cables, they’re certainly suspect.

 

Ten years is probably near end of life. The seal at the post fails, and when it fails acid is wicked up thru the failed seal, acidic vapors also make it past the failed seal. I have never been able to really fix a bad battery post seal, although a Urethane caulking did help for a while, but then it leaked too


Treat your posts with care, never hammer on them, never apply excessive torque on the clamps. You have a soft lead post and plastic here. Either of which can easily be damaged and hence leak.

you may now also have a low battery acid level, so remove the caps and add DISTILLED water as needed to bring level up to the correct mark.

You can try Urethane sealer (clean surface well with water, and rough up the plastic well with course sand paper to improve adhesion, )

But I think your ten year old battery is about done. if you allow it to leak, think you are frugal in fixing it, well beware! if you let it go you can end up with rusted metal work on your jeep and the need for new battery cables as the acid eats away at your sheet steel and copper cable conductors. If you have to replace those cables, and do body rust repair, well a new battery will seem cheap.
Also note the date code on new battery when shopping. do NOT buy any that are more than three months old. Many stores do not recharge the batteries in stock, although they should. a battery sitting for more than about 3 months will suffer from a low state of charge, and a low state of charge battery will become permanently damaged, sure it may make it thru the 36 or 72 months warrantee, but it will not live as long as it should had it been recharged monthly while at the store or watehouse. . I have lived this.
The date sticker is the date that acid was installed, that is when the battery starts to age. a battery that has no acid can be stored indefinitely without degrading, but once filled with acid, you need to keep it near full charge for storage else the plates will sulfate, and capacity and life will be reduced. batteries self discharge even on the shelf, often about 10% per a month. and time spent at less than full charge permanently harms them. So buy fresh ones for best results, longest life

And always treat your posts with gentle care, the seal is delicate.

 

Ive used anti corrosion pads with the Mustang for years and no corrosion. Before that i covered the corrosion with baking soda, followed with distilled water, and an old toothbrush. After it stopped bubbling, i wipe it all off. Then i use a battery brush on the posts, and the inside of the clamps. Later, rather than make a mess with the baking soda, i started using those pads because, for me atleast, they do work. I still clean the posts and clamps anytime i pull cables, but i just use the brush.

Clean everything and give those pads a try.

 

Those pad do help with smaller leaks, but the leaks can be so bad at times that the pads become overwhelmed. A leak in combination of a heavily gassing battery can spew a lot of acid thru a badly failed post seal. If his clamps are getting so corroded the car wont start every few months, that is a sign of a big leak, the wire strands are .likely corroded now, or soon will be, so a new cable might be needed.
Id certainly dip the cable ends in a baking soda water solution and let them soak a while to remove acid residues from the cable ends. You want nice shinny copper strands for a good contact to the clamp.
Note, do not let baking soda get into the battery via the caps, vent, or a leaky post. Doing so will harm the battery.

Good luck, charge along!

 

Thanks for all the replies. A gleaned a little from each post thus far and I am thinking I have a battery post failure of some sort. Couple of things just to complete this ... for future/present use.
1. Clarification - I have been using the same brand of battery for 10 years not the same battery for 10 years. I switch the battery out about every 3 years. My point was that something has really changed and it was not going from one battery to another.
2. I cleaned the battery posts and lead clamps with a battery cleaner brush.
3. The car will not start and then if I clean the posts and clamps I can start the car ... and the check engine light goes off. So the corrosion is definitely serious enough.
4. I live in a warm humid climate so rust is not so much of an issue like it is in the colder climates.

On a final note I did find some deterioration in the battery post but not sure that is the cause of both posts getting corrosion.

 

vaseline on the battery posts works, and you also may have high resistance in the battery cables, a known issue

 

Thanks. The cables have not been replaced in at least 10 years.

I should probably move this question to another thread but ... Any recommendation on the battery cable configuration?

A quick amazon search turned up
1. built cables with lead terminal adapters,
2. alloy terminals where connecting the cable was
a. via round holed ends where the terminal is attached by bolting the round end into a universal terminal - cables with holed end points attach to universal terminals
b. bare wire is clamped to the terminal in some form.

Both negative and positive have two wires attaching to the terminals.

 

https://www.ksuspensionfab.com/store...Upgrade.html#/

If you don’t want to make them, then something like this.

 

For your cables, shoot some photos and post them, lets so how bad they look. Also you can test the cable by measuring the voltage drop across it when under load, i.e. while having motor cranked. the fact that you can crank over the engine ok after you clean the battery post and clamp tells me the cables might be still good, and that the problem is the contact between the post and clamp, not in the cable itself. But test the cable for voltage drop to be sure.

also three years is fairly short battery life

What causes short life?
Battery kept in a state of less than FULL charge. Since batteries self discharge, they NEED to be recharged monthly when disconnected. If connected, they may discharge faster thanks to car radios and such being always drawing power. Again this is why only the newest battery should be purchased.
Infrequent drives or only short drives will discharge a battery, as the drive time is not enough to recharge the loss in charge caused by starting.

If these condition apply, then get a trickle charger installed, it may mean several more years of battery life!

A bad charging system in car can also give you a low charge state. dirty posts and cables can cause the charging system to not charge the battery very well. so test your charging system. A volt meter is your helper here.

Spilled acid on battery top can conduct power and if the spill bridges between the two posts, it will drain the battery.

If you drive regularly,, drive far enough to fully charge battery, and charging system is good, then maybe the problem is Costco. they might be selling you old batteries that sat with acid in them for months with no attempt made to keep them fully charged while stored, hence they are damaged when you buy them. Some people love costco, but sometimes the sell junk, and hire incompetent installers of what they sell.

I usually get 8 to 12 years out of a battery. Dont be attracted to a low Costco price without considering the quality. you can pay twice as much, and still be twice ahead if you get 12 years out of your next battery rather than three years.

You got a problem, 3 years of battery life is wrong. this is due to...
1. your driving habits, infrequent use, short drives... solution is a trickle charger
2. you got a parasitic load always draining your battery, glove box light stays on, big fancy radio that draws when off, etc... this problem is worse if infrequent driven. Solution is to eliminate the parasitic draw, perhaps a battery switch installed.
3. Your charging system is bad, marginal. bad wires, slipping belt, dying alternator etc.. solution is test it, and fix what is found bad
4. You are buying crappy batteries, either poorly made batteries, batteries that are old (acid filled) and allowed to run low charge when in the stockroom., or a battery that was damaged, i.e. dropped, used as a step stool, had posts hammered or twisted. Solution... buy from a seller that keeps batteries correctly, sells fresh ones, keeps them charged, does not stack them on each other ( a way to wreck the posts seal)

If you got leaks on new battery, return it right away under warrentee. If you notice anything less than normal voltage on a new battery upon charging, send it back under warrentee, even if it still cranks your car over, if voltage is below normal, that means that battery is compromised and will live a short life. I have done that, bought one once and it only had 12.2 volts even when fully charged by me. it should be about 12.6 volts when full charged ( engine off, no load). at 12.2 volts, that battery only had about half its rated capacity left! You want a minimum of 12.6 volts on a new battery!

And yes, I bring my volt meter to the store so I can test my potential purchase*

* That is an electrical pun.

 

Interstate batteries are sold at most shops, dealerships, and marinas throughout the country. Interstate provides the storage racks and keeps the best selling batteries for that location in stock. They rotate the inventory of batteries not as frequently used. The interstate truck usually comes once a week for re supply and to pick up cores. If a warranty situation arises it’s easy for the shop and customer.

 

Yet I have found 12 month old dated batteries at major retailers. My rough estimate is 90% of the time the date is three months or less old. You got to watch out, and forget about it is the date code is missing. Some retailers, distributors lack scruples.

For that 12 month old battery story.., A major retailer wanted to me to take it as a warrentee exchange, I told them no. At a different store in near by town, but same major national retail auto parts store I called to see if they had a battery for warrantee exchange . The lady looked it up said the computer said she has it and went back to the shelf to confirm, she then told me she has it, but won't give me it cause it was too old (also 12 months). She was going to call me back after checking the warehouse She called the warehouse, and they looked it up, They had another old one! So she got the manufacturer to rush a new battery to her store for me. Same retail company, different store. That first store still had two of those 12 montth old batteries for sale on the shelf a week later, they did not care.

BUYER BEWARE!

 

That was all good info. I learned a couple of things and re-learned more.

Replacing batteries every 3 years - Simple, I get full reimbursement within the 3 years so ... I just switch them out every 3 years.

 

Nice cables and that give me direction on what I should replace my cables with if I need to - thanks.

 

You dont perchance hammer the terminals on with some sort of tool ever?, this is a big no-no

I have had more than one battery over the years that did leak gas, or even acid...but in these cases, removing the battery and inspecting the surrounding areas normally shows excessive corrosion