Opened up my hood and noticed a lot build up on my positive terminal. Took it in for a service and they cleaned off the terminal. Opened it up a few days later and more corrosion and the car wouldn't start. Jumped it, took it back in because I wanted to make sure it was just the battery.

As we started looking, the connection that goes around the terminal on the harness had corroded enough that the copper ring was gone. Therefore, there was no connection to the battery.

Dealer needs to replace the whole harness. I'm 6 days outside of my warranty but the service manager is awesome and said he was going to cover it. He was pretty upset that his tech didn't see the problem when they serviced my battery when they got the service done.

Anyone ever heard of this? How do you prevent this? I purchased the car from Florida....any idea if this was the reason? It's now in Colorado.

 

I don't know what would cause excessive corrosion like that. Especially after just having it serviced and coming back so quickly. That seems really odd unless there is some environmental element you are not telling us.

As the for dealer, that's awesome! Its good to hear at lease one good story come from a dealer.

 

replace the battery as well sometimes they will start leaking acid and then the corrosion sets in. there protectent sprays that you can spray on the terminals that neutralize the acid, and this should prevent further corrosion

 

Ok I'll do the battery and protectant spray or gel. That sounds great

Nothing environmental I could foresee. I have a '14 F-150 EcoBoost Appearance Package and it's fine. Also have a '14 Jeep Grand Cherokee Summit and everything looks fine on it, as well. I just think I have a bad battery.

 

Make sure you get your battery replaced as it's leaking. I kept my corrosion at bay for about a year on my original Motorcraft battery (129K miles) when last Sunday I was 100 miles from civilization and my positive terminal corroded to the point it sheared off causing a tow and a $400+ bill to rewire the positive harness.

 

Ouch! Okay I'll do that then. How much did you spend on the battery replacement?

 

Yup, your battery is leaking. I always put a new set of those red/green felt washers on with a new battery. Don't know if they help, but it can't hurt.

 

New Motorcraft battery was $120. Parts (positive cable-Ford specific) was around $200. The rest was labor to wire it all in $200.

 

Yeah swap the battery too. This reminds me to check my wife's explorer. Had to clean excessive on her '10 eddie bauer and if there's any there, it's time to swap batteries.

 

The terminal seal has failed on the positive post. Same thing happened to my OEM battery, but on the negative post. You'll have to replace the battery to stop the corrosion. Don't overtighten the terminal clamps and apply some dielectric grease on the outside of the clamps after securing them to the posts.