Battery

[leslie_eilsel]

So when I bought my solara 4 months ago, it had a durmast battery in it, and it died Wednesday. The terminal cable is fringed, do anyone think this could have had anything to do with it? I'm also disappointed that there wasn't a toyota battery since I bought it certified, platinum package. I took this pic after the new battery and was surprised that they didn't fix the cable for me...what do y'all think?

[TLMNICK]

Honestly, when you purchase a used car from a dealership, or a used car lot, they'll never ever check stuff like that. The only time they'll check it out is if the car had starting issues. The terminal actually looks a lot worse than it really is. The outer rust is minimal, and as long as there's no rust on the parts that come in contact with the terminal itself, all you'll need is a good cleaning, and it'll be good to go. If you really wanna get into it, you can remove the terminal, and sand it all down so it'll look pretty. I was pretty lucky to have clean terminals when I got my lara.

[ThurzNite]

Actually, even certified pre-owned direct from a toyota dealership would pass that inspection for the battery. It starts, it runs, it passes inspection. The frayed wiring though is borderline. Could the frayed wiring have caused the failure? You could argue that. Instead of being a 0 gauge thickness wire, it's probably more like a 20 gauge now. Running 800 amps through 20 gauge every time you start the car is good enough to heat up and fry plenty of electrical, including increasing resistance within the battery. So yeah, if u had tons of money to hire a lawyer to sue the place the you bought from, u could win or settle. Not worth it though, lawyers cost more than getting new battery and cable. Did your car come with a warranty?

Changing out the wire is pretty easy. I've seen repair kits from autozone and O'reily, and pep boyz. For example:
http://www.grainger.com/Grainger/GROTE- ... _sku=2FFD3

http://www.oreillyauto.com/site/c/detai ... 8438CR.oap

Good luck

Dr J

[leslie_eilsel]

i bought the extended platinum warranty. I just want to make sure that fringed cable didn't have anything to do with it bc then this battery will kick it soon and i spend 135 on it. thx for all the input

[GzNutz]

The fringed cable you're referring to just looks like a cloth wrap insulating the wire. I'm saying this because I can't see any copper wire showing in the pic. You should be fine with a new battery.