new years 2009,my wife heard a bang outside,i went out the next day and my battery was everywhere,6 volt on a 6 volt charger and it exploded,i put my safety glasses on whenever i'm near a batt now
Loud, aren't they? I had one explode while I was trying to jump start, not only was I covered in acid, I was almost deaf for about a hour. Be careful out there!
99% chance that it was either frozen or you had the charger on 12 volts. A weak battery with frozen electrolyte will explode when you try to charge it.
I've had 'em blow up driving down the road. Three 12v's in an IHC Eagle, Bam Bam Bam! That wakes ya up, boy. The batteries collapse internally, and short out, and Boom!
I had one blow up in my face. I was blind for a few weeks. Was not even My car, just was lookin in at the motor. Guy pop the throttle and pow.
When I worked at a gas station in town when I was in high school a guy went to start his car after getting gas and his battery exploded. It was the loudest explosion I think I have heard. When he opened the hood, there was acid everywhere and there was a huge whole in the side of the case of the battery. You could look in and see all of the plates inside the battery. The best part was after we opened the hood and told him that it had exploded, the dope tried to start the car again. Needless to say, we sold him a new battery.
Hello, I'm glad you were away from the car. I have a good friend that lost an eye when he leaned over a fork lift then the battery blue. Bob
Was leaning over a golf cart when one of the batteries exploded. The battery top flew past my head. Scared me pretty good.
Did you remember to loosen the caps while it was on the charger?? Lotsa folks aren't aware of that necessity these days??? Been lucky never to see one go. Or even the carcass of oe that did.
I had one blow up in my face while jumping off also.Luckily it mostly blew out toward the engine.Still got my clothes ruined but my glasses saved my eyes.Ruined the paint on my fender and all under the hood.So many of us don't consider that possibility but its real and we need to remember they can and do explode.
My dad had one explode in his boat when he was hooking it up. He went outside and put his face in the water to neutralize the acid he was covered with. Another friend had one explode while installing it in his Merc and it sent case pieces into his forehead, leaving nasty scars. He died of brain cancer about 10 years later.
My daughter was driving our '85 Caprice (this was 20 years ago)when the battery blew up. All the people in the neighborhood came outside to see what had happened. I went to pick her up and they were all telling me how loud it was.
I was sitting with a group from our car club at a rod run one summer when all of a sudden BOOM! Everyone in the group jumped about 10 feet, it was that loud! The battery in my buddy's '40 Deluxe fordoor blew up. Made quite the mess under the hood.
Guy at work was grinding the sparks were raining down on batteries we had for solar school zone signs. They blew up and fucked a bunch of stuff up! Now that guy is a supervisor.
Wow...and how many are tucked into a coupe trunk next to an aluminium fuel tank!?!? I had one go off in my face. I was testing a Chevette for a dead cylinder...pulled off number one wire while the car was running and it shorted to the Alternator charge wire. BOOM! Really lucky I didn't get plastic slivers in my eyes...but the acid bath was bad enough. The whole driveway was covered in little white clouds of acid foam when I went back out after getting flushed with water.
I witnessed a battery explosion in a garage when a tech hooked up the charger's cables with the charger already on, to charge the battery in a small school bus. Went off like a 12 gauge right in his face. We got him washed down (thank goodness the shop had a properly maintained eye-wash station) as well as another tech who was under the hood at the time. No permenant injuries but what a noise and mess. Only the bottom of the case was still there, everything else was spread all over the engine compartment and shop floor. It gave me LOTS of respect for the dangers involved in charging a battery.
When I was a kid I was jump starting a little 6 V tractor with a 12 truck, that battery "blew up real good".... Well the moral of this story is that yea, it was a dumb kid move, the other dumb kid move is that the battery did not have one stitch of water/acid in it... So one "dumb ass kid move" followed by a "lucky dumb ass kid move"... I'll take em where I can get em.. a win is still a win...
Wow, makes me think twice about the batter under the seat in my 34 pu.. I assume Optima batteries are also liable to explode? You know what they say about assuming...
when i was younger me and some buddies were bucking hay for a farmer and got done with one field and found some metal laying in the field and threw it in the bed of the truck and heard aloud boom... battery exploded all over the bed of the truck never knew there was a battery laying in there till then, good thing we were all away from it when it happend cause we were in the middle of a 300 acer hay field
Batteries also melt like a mother. I've seen them explode and I've seen them melt the trunk of a 58 Impala lowrider. Guy didn't vent his trunk and all those batteries got warm.........oh well. Wear your safety gear, it sure beats wearing an eye patch for the rest of your life..........unless you really think chicks dig scars? I keep a pair of safety glasses on the visor of my truck and a pair of gloves in the console.
I drove a tow truck for alot of years and have seen/heard my share of batteries that blew up. For some reason the Lexus 300 seemed to have more problems than any other vehicle I know of, must have delt with five or six of those over the years. Once, on a late night call at a theatre a car a few stalls away from the one I was servicing had a battery blow up. There were only about ten people left in the lot but everyone of them hit the deck, it sounded just like a twelve gauge.
When i was a wee lad of about 14, I was trying to get a '54 chevy to start. Had the charger on it for a while. The hood was sort of closed for most of the time. opened the hood and went to check the points. Slightly moved the charger cable and bang.. I was leaning over the fender and caught the brunt of the blast. My shirt caught fire and singed my face pretty good. That cost me 20 days in Sherman Oaks burn center and about 20 follow up visits.
I worked in a big shop around 1977 or so and saw 2 blow up one winter. One went as the mechanic raised the hood, the latch must have made a spark and the battery gases went up. The next one blew as another mechanic was hooking up a charging system tester. We had an eyewash station and both guys got a bath and a trip to the ER. Luckily neither was hurt except for a couple of minor cuts from the case shards. Man were they loud! I was a few bays down from one explosion and everyone hit the dirt. Bob
A buddy of mine's brother is blind now because he was at home alone and had a battery blow up in his face and could not get to the hospital...
High School Auto Shop two grade 9's were working on the Janitor's garden tractor while the battery was charging and one of them dropped a box end wrench which landed on the battery terminals and the hydrogen bomb went off. The kids got picked up by some grade 12's that were near them and thrown into the hand washing station (you know the half round one with the foot pedal). Luckily neither one got acid in their eyes but their clothes just kind of fell off and they had to wear their gym shorts for the rest of the day. My brother had one blow up in his '63 Dodge wagon shortly after we had the whole car repainted, what a mess. A couple of plates shorted in the battery while it was charging (he was driving it at the time) and Kaboom!
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