A car mechanic thought he was dealing with a typical problem when someone called to say their vehicle would not start. But when he popped the hood open, he saw something he had never come across before in his career.
According to Motor 1, Facebook user CarHax Fernando posted a video that was first shared by @gtohockeyguy around two months back. The clip shows what happened when the mechanic checked out a car battery that had failed in an extremely unusual way.
The mechanic describes in the Facebook video what he saw when he opened the hood. “The customer states, ‘Car won’t start.’ Well, something blew the battery up. So, yeah, we’re gonna start with the battery. In case anybody wants to know what the inside of a battery looks like. That’s what it does.”
Honestly this is kind of terrifying to see happen
The top of the battery had split wide open from the pressure inside, showing all the parts that are normally hidden. Fernando wrote in his post, “Car towed in for a no-start. Quick inspection revealed the battery top had literally cracked open from internal pressure. Not something you see every day.”
There are different ways a battery case can end up cracked. These sealed lead acid battery cases can split apart if the car gets into an accident or if the battery gets charged too much. You can also break the case just by accidentally dropping the battery.
When a battery charges up, it makes hydrogen gas that has to get out through small vents. If those vents get stuck or something blocks them, the pressure keeps building up inside. Sometimes that pressure gets so strong it can break the case or make the battery explode.
The main problem here is what happens when too much pressure builds up inside. While a battery is charging, it naturally creates gases from the chemical reactions happening inside. Those gases have to go somewhere or bad things can happen.
If something goes wrong with the charging system and it keeps pumping too much power into the battery, way too much gas gets made. The vents cannot handle all that gas, so the pressure just keeps going up until the plastic case cannot take it anymore.
Most people who know about batteries will tell you not to try fixing a cracked one. Even though the acid inside modern car batteries is held in a gel or special mat so it does not spill out right away, a cracked battery still will not work right for long.
How bad the crack is does matter a bit, but almost all mechanics say you should just buy a new battery instead of trying to patch up the old one. Auto repair shops see all kinds of strange problems, and battery failures like this can turn into really tricky situations. You can find some fixes online, but in most cases, they are not permanent solutions.
People who watched the video had all kinds of reactions to seeing the busted battery. Someone wrote, “Oh. Oh no.” Other people decided to joke around about it, with one person writing, “I think the battery needs to be changed.” What the mechanic found that day shows that batteries can break down without warning and put people in danger.
