Battery terminal is toasted

jnaut said:

Dumb question, do all "maintenance free' batteries say "maintenance free" on them? I absent mindedly bought a new battery some time ago, then began to wonder after the fact if it's maint. free. It has removable covers and you can see the water inside, but the batter itself doesn't say "maintenance free" anywhere on it.

Click to expand...

Almost all newer batteries are maintenance free,they may have covers still but most are not removeable without breaking something.


Best bet is to get a Optima battery,in over 10 years of running Optima's I have never,and I mean never had any trace of corrosion on any of my terminals,oh and I never clean them either or spray anything on them.

Battery

That's exactly what I put on my battery when I got a new one from Autozone a few months ago. Those little felt pad and some type of goo they gave me. Not a trace of corrosion.

offrovering said:

clean terminals with baking soda and water, use wire brush, scrub them and get the corrosion off. once you have everything cleaned up, coat terminals and cables with vaseline, don't use anything but pure vaseline, 100% petrolium jelly. it will conduct but keep from building corrosion, youll be surprised how clean they stay

Click to expand...

X2. Worked for me for years...never had a negative side effect.

I have seen the little felt things but never used them, just always check and clean if needed, over 38 years of owning vehicles and have never seen one of mine that bad, others who never checked them yes but ....