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Bizarre Battery #

Posted by Paul Howd on July 5, 2013, 6:46 pm

Year of Manufacture *: H reg Volvo, but could apply to any vehicle
Engine Size and Code *: NA

Customer has flat battery. Puts it on charge and is somewhat surprised when on reconnecting it he gets a big spark and sets fire to the earthing strap on the alternator!

Can anyone guess what had happened.....?

Re: Bizarre Battery!

Posted by andyhyoung <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/ukautotalk11/info/user=UKAT5148' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 5, 2013, 7:14 pm, in reply to "Bizarre Battery!"
Andrew Young

At a guess,probably been charged the wrong way round.Red to red,black to black and blew to pieces!!

Re: Bizarre Battery!

Posted by Piotr Sokolowski <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/ukautotalk11/info/user=UKAT1848' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 6, 2013, 8:19 am, in reply to "Re: Bizarre Battery!"

hehehehe
or maybe there was a short in the altrenator what drained the baterry. I have seen similar-big spar andbattery goes down but setting the fire up.

Link: http://www.pandpauto.co.uk

Re: Bizarre Battery!

Posted by Paul Howd <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/ukautotalk11/info/user=UKAT5151' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 6, 2013, 9:00 am, in reply to "Re: Bizarre Battery!"
Paul Howd

He had in fact charged the battery the wrong way round so that the polarity was reversed so that when he reconnected it "Correctly" it was actually the wrong way round!

I am actually quite impressed that he was able to do this. In due course I will look into the electrochemistry that made this possible

Fortunately being an old car, the only real damage was to the radio which now no longer works. (I have suggested that we check the back of the radio for a mini fuse but do not have the gizmos to remove it for now)

As an aside, just How well protected against reverse polarity errors are more modern vehicles?? (If at all!) ISTR a spate of reverse polarity type faults some years ago as a result of the bizarre continental practice of designating the live battery cable as being Black! but haven't seen to much of it more recently.

Re: Bizarre Battery!

Posted by andyhyoung <iframe src='https://members.boardhost.com/ukautotalk11/info/user=UKAT5148' width='330' height='300' border=0 style='border:none;'> on July 6, 2013, 6:07 pm, in reply to "Re: Bizarre Battery!"
Andrew Young

Good point.Very few cars now have easily identifiable plus and minus leads on the battery.Looked at an 2002 Passat last week in a body shop,they managed to jump start it wrong polarity.Took out the engine ecu,abs unit and various fuses.The average customers seem to be the worst offenders,especially when their (helpfull)neighbour trys to jump start the car,reverse leads.GFB (good for business)

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