Distilled water in to a car battery!?

molerat

The majority of "maintenance free" batteries are ordinary lead acid batteries with a sticky label covering the caps and can be topped up if necessary. Very few are gel and until recently were limited to top end models due to the higher cost.

Joe_Horner

Topping up lead acid batteries isn't a problem as long as they're not the gel type. The only difference with "maintenance free" ones is that they have vents designed to, in normal service, reduce water loss to a minimum - so the level should stay ok for the expected life of the battery. All batteries have vents btw (or they'd risk exploding while charging) but the old ones were simply small holes in the caps.

Very often the "expected life" is reached at the point where the electrolyte level drops too low despite the valves and damages the plates.

Checking and topping up a maintenance free battery once it's a couple of years old or so can seriously increase it's life - one of our Dafs has a 6v "maintenance free" which, with top-ups, is now in its 7th year and still going strong in daily use using dynamo (ie: poorly regulated) charging.

forgotmyname

This was in the scrimpers show the other night. Save yourself buying new battery and make it last longer top it up with distilled water.

Not tap water though. Although as an emergency. You could. Not ideal for the batteries life though.

atrixblue.-MFR-.

distilled water at £1.29 at asda or replace a battery at £39+ depending on vehicle.

banner batteries are sealed, dont open those ones it wrecks them.

motor factor experiment proved this when i worked in a factors, we did it to prove to a customer that sealed ones can be damaged with distilled water top up. remeber when taking you battery out though if the re is a small pipe coming out of it it need to be put back on or risk exploding the battery.