Overcharged battery? Anyone seen this?

[codemonkey]

Today while driving my girlfriends car, we noticed a stinky fart smell. Almost like a catalatyic converter, so thats what I assumed it was. Smelled more like poop than rotten egg, but I figured it was a wierd one.

Later tonight, while driving home the speedo buried, and the tach quit working. The battery light came on. Then, a couple minutes later the headlights went out. We drove it home, and just as we got home, it died completely, and overheated.

Thinking the battery was dead, I yanked it out, and brought it up to put it on the charger. I noticed thats where the stink was coming from. Upon feeling the battery it was very very hot. I popped the charger on it, to see what the level was, and the battery was full.

I think the battery was overcharged but not sure why. Anyone ever heard of this? The car is a 90 accord, and the battery is an optima (I think I managed to break the seal on it, a neat feat!). Its non functional at this time, but shows totally full on the charger.

 

[1993c0bra]

yeah it happened to my parents motor home a few weeks ago it stunk up the whole damn neighborhood, we thought it was a gas leak from the house. Its just a bad battery

 

[NayChan]

Jeeze. Glad you could figure it out before you pulled out something really important.

 

[codemonkey]

yeah it happened to my parents motor home a few weeks ago it stunk up the whole damn neighborhood, we thought it was a gas leak from the house. Its just a bad battery

I hope its just a bad battery. Even tho it is a brand new optima, about a month old. $129 bucks down the drain.

 

[TheRedBlur]

it happens a lot, consider yourself lucky that it didn't explode, that's what they usually do.

 

[codemonkey]

it happens a lot, consider yourself lucky that it didn't explode, that's what they usually do.

Yeah, I know. Because its an optima ("dry cell") there is less explosive gases in it, so thats probably why it didn't. I bet you can make an optima explode though, if you tried hard enough. Glad that didnt happen.

 

[hungrymonkey]

probably overheated from the electric fans.

Hopefully the damage was only to the battery. I would hate to try to rewire a newer car. Its not to difficult of a concept, bu the wires are so fricking hard to get to under the dash.

I wonder what the alternator was putting out.

 

[stangman393]

Optima's usually have a 1 year free replacement policy then they prorate it.