Exploding Battery Terminal

[Bpalm902]

My daughter was using my 2011, 48 volt club car precedent last night with the front light on, when she heard a bang and the cart died. Upon inspection I found one of the battery terminals had blown off. I believe the batteries are the originals one (not sure though) but had them checked last year and the were all holding a full charge.

I do have an issue with corrosion around my terminals which has led to several cable leads corroding through and a couple of times recently when I plugged it in to charge the reverse sound started beeping rapidly (unsure if that is related). The terminal in question happened to have a new battery connector that I bought on it.

I’m assuming the battery needs to be replaced so I am wondering if I can replace the bad one or should replace them all? From what I have seen on line, I get then impression it was the batteries condition that caused this to happen. Wondering if this is correct or could it be something else? Given the price of batteries I am nervous about buying 6 new batteries and having this happen again. I have a picture if that helps. Thanks.

[DaveMJ]

Originally Posted by Bpalm902

I found one of the battery terminals had blown off.

Can you share a photo? If it just melted it was likely a poor connection, if this is the case you can drill a hole in the remaining portion of the terminal and secure the cable with a self tapper.

[Bpalm902]

I hope I did this right. It is the bottom right corner.

[Bpalm902]

Just realized that is not a good picture. I will take another and repost.

[Bpalm902]

I think this is better.

[DaveMJ]

You may be able to drill and tap that, wait for other forum members to chime in.

[ojo]

A repair is probably possible, but if the batteries are the originals, it's time to say goodby. There is a lot of corrosion all around, so replace all batteries and replace the battery cables also.

[Bpalm902]

Thanks for all the feed back. I thought I would likely need to replace them but wanted to check first.

[Volt_Ampere]

That failure was caused by the dirty corroded terminal connection. It gets hot enough to melt the lead terminal right off the battery. When you rebuild things, it would be best to replace the cables and make sure that your connections are very clean and snug. Check them after a drive to see if any are getting hot.

[CP241]

Batteries are usually good for 5-6 years, sometimes longer if properly maintained. I usually recommend replacing the cables any time the batteries are changed just as a good practice. Copper is one of the most easily corroded metals, and adding dissimilar metals like lead and then the acid on top of it, both liquid and venting the gases don’t do the copper wire any favors.

Cables aren’t that expensive and I would consider it an investment into the longer health of the expensive batteries.