tifosi360

Yesterday, I went out for a drive. Stop at Starbucks; shut the car off; decide to turn it back on to see the oil level; kaboooooom, battery explodes....smoke and acid everywhere. It sounded like there was an assassination attempt on me with some under the car bomb. Of course you cannot open the hood. I call my friend to swing by with a jumper battery as I am desperately trying to open the hood to save my car from acid damage. The jump procedure to open the hood naturally does not work as the battery has grenaded itself. I was able to take the key out at least.

Call 1-800-Porsche they tow me to the dealer that has only a skeleton crew because of Saturday. Wait a few hours for the repair. They even kept the entire shop open past their 1 pm closing time to help me. Luckily, there was no damage to the car but the battery exploded on both end. They used a **** load of baking soda and lots of rinsing. All is good now. I cannot tell that the explosion happened. The service advisor says that he doesn't feel like arguing with me, so they will warranty the new battery and clean up. (As you know, Porsche considers anything battery related as wear item, even if it kills you...almost.)

The facts...my car is a 2009 Cayman, has only 1400 miles and it is generally hooked up to a Porsche battery tender as recommended by them if you drive the car less than 6000 miles a year. I took it out for a drive. Drive 10 miles, come to park. Shut the car off, restart then boom!!!

Some Porsche batteries suck and Champion Porsche dealer rocks. I will call PCNA on Monday and bitch, but I know it will be futile attempt get some kind of acknowledgment. It WILL be my fault for not driving my car enough. So if you use a tender on your car, perhaps you should have the hood open to vent the hydrogen mix out before you start the engine. And have baking soda on you.

Thanks.

RollingArt

I don't understand.

What's to bitch about? You got awesome service from Champion. Seems they went beyond their call of duty. What would you possibly want from Porsche now.

Sorry for the unnerving experience you went through. Think you may still be suffering a little shell-shock.

It's very curios what makes these batteries explode like that. Your's isn't the first I've read about here. Common denominator seems to be batteries that live on the Porsche charger.

GL





Phil

tifosi360

Are you serious? Of course, Porsche needs to hear about the issue! Perhaps, this info could potentially help others. I am certain had you gone thru the same event, you would not be so quick to dismiss my strong desire to complain. Porsche did not help me, as they don't cover battery related issues, the dealer did...two separate entities.

Bullitt44

I have seen a couple popped batteries and not pretty.

at least you are in great hands.

PTEC

This happens in all makes and models of cars, it is not a Porsche specific problem. I'm not an engineer but it seems its just a fact of life and thankfully a freak occurrence of having a lead acid battery. that being said, I don't see what you could possibly have left to complain about. It sounds like the dealer took great care of you and ate the cost of a battery to make you happy. What do you except Porsche to do now?

Paul Marangoni

Porsche should definitely look into the battery tender applications and see if additional precautions are necessary. I can't help but wonder why anyone buys a Porsche and hardly drives it. The worst thing you can do to these cars is ignore them. Nothing good ever comes of it.

switchcars

Did you get any feedback from your call to Porsche?

Tell them to stop using crap batteries....we usually put Interstate in every car we get as the Porsche brand ones SUCK. Heck, I bought a "new" leftover Cayenne Turbo one time, battery was toast, and Porsche wouldn't warranty it because the car had sat at the Porsche dealer more than 6 months.

peterporsche

Agree with RollingArt, what's left to complain about? I sure glad I wasn't the service adviser at Champion that day. Chill out and don't be such a kvetsher. You're not the first one whose battery blew up. Nobody was hurt and the car was repaired on a Saturday.

Marc

I hope you did let Porsche know about your situation. I used to be an engineer for another auto manufacturer, and it was important for us to learn about failures. This is one way to improve on the design and make the product more reliable.

It would be interesting to know the brand and model of your battery tender. I just bought a Battery Tender Plus from Deltran, and just out of curiosity was wondering if you have the same one.

Any experience out there with disconnecting the battery to avoid drainage.

springgeyser

The only time I've seen a battery blow up is overcharging...or a bad alternator regulator causing the battery to boil.

dallison28

It is best to let pcna know of the issue. I have done this before for many things. If they don't know, they won't have info on it.

I just wouldn't bitch at them. I can understand the anger but your issue was resolved.

smlporsche

I bought a Porsche battery tender when we got our '03 and it has been plugged in the entier time ( except when driving of course!) and it has not had any problems and that's been 8 years!!

Was your a Porsche brand??

jjmuirjr

Dealing with same problem. Not sure when battery exploded. Drive infrequently but start frequently. Tried to start nothing. No sound but would not turn over. Opened front hatch and saw Interstate battery had exploded. Had been on Porsche battery tender. What a mess. Terminals were clean and tightly connected. Removed what was left of battery. Not easy on an '87 911. ( at least for me, the mechanically challenged), Cleaned with water and baking soda and will clean and rinse ahain today.

What else is suggested? Worried about cables having acid damage. Any prep to battery area paint?

What should now be checked by mechanic?

Thanks

Macster

The battery exploded due to a build up of gases (oxygen and hydrogen if I remember my lead acid battery chemistry) arising from being on the tender. I suspect a bad battery vent that allows these gases to collect in/around the battery and all it takes is one spark to ignite this highly potent mixture.

Another possibility is the battery had some internal defect that allowed the two gases to intermix and form an explosive mixture and then there was some internal spark source that triggered the explosion.

Given the circumstances where the battery in your car exploded with no one around and before you tried to start the engine I lean towards, at least in your car's case, to the internal defect theory.

Anyhow, you did the right thing flushing with a mixture of baking soda and water.

Have the mechanic check the battery is installed correctly, securely, the vent hose is ok, and the terminal leads are secure, but not too tight. Also, Porsche cautions against "greasing" these so if you used any grease the mechanic can remove that.

AZ Erik

Battery tenders seldomly cycle a battery. Most tenders that i have dealt with in the past would force a trickle charge of .1 amp or there about. If the battery is already fully charged, to it's peak, forcing .1 amp an hour for many many weeks can cause swelling of the cells, causing a pop of the casing. Gasses etc as Macster mentioned as well. When I put a vehicle on a tender that I questions weather it cycles a battery I go out and turn on the headlights for 30 minutes to an hour every week or so, just to drain the battery down a bit. I also don't drive and come home pop it directly on the tender and lock it up. What is going on here is not any different than laptop batteries popping after being left on a charger for a month or the entire life.

It's quite possible the charging logic of the tenders either doesn't exist (not sure how to confirm this without one to test) or go bad. Remember usually they only have overvolt protection. Most tenders either just charge charge charge in hopes your car drains enough to keep it from over volting, or they have a logic built in to charge, rest, possibly drain, rest, charge, rinse repeat. I've only run across 1 'tender' that had the later logic that I could confirm and it was actually a $600 Snap-on charger with a tender option.

I had several dry cell and gell cell batteries supposedly get killed this way. Stinger gell cell's can't handle consistant charge voltage over 12.5 (stupid to make this battery... ever cars run at 13 to 13.5, 14volts if I get a hold of them for audio) or the Negative terminal ejects from the casing