Oreilly Auto Parts Car Battery Fire!?

Has anyone had problems with car batteries purchased at Oreilly Auto Parts? Manufactured by East Penn. Purchased a 6 year battery 10 months ago, absolutely no problems until 9 / 11 / 07. Drove the truck to work, parked as usual, 30 minutes later a co - worker saw smoke coming out of the hood. Another co - worker quickly extinguished the fire with a chemical extinguisher, saving my truck and likely others parked nearby. Long story short, the battery company sent an arson investigator who ruled the cause of the fire was the battery and East Penn has agreed to pay for damages, which were moderate, all things considered. A local mechanic also looked it over and said he had had "lots" of bad Oreilly / East Penn batteries over the years, with the particular model I bought having a reputation for going completely dead soon after purchase due to internal shorting, which he and the arson investigator believe caused my fire. Having deadly potential, wondering if others have had similar problems?

Responses:

Sounds like you need to use another kind of battery. Let them fix your damages and insist on another brand of battery or credit for one instead of a replacement of the same brand
Usually the cause of a battery fire is low electrolyte levels inside the battery. If your battery has caps on the top of the battery, then you should check the level of the "water" inside. If it is low enough to expose the plates inside the battery it can cause a tiny spark inside the battery itself. During the normal use of the battery, the discharging and charging cycle causes the hydrogen and oxygen to separate from the water in the electrolyte. Hydrogen gas is flammable to the point of explosion. One tiny spark is enough to ignite the hydrogen which effectively causes the battery to explode. You should always check the level of the battery every time you change oil, or every 3 months. I have a friend who no longer has the use of his left eye because he did not check the level of the liquid of the battery before he charged a battery. He turned on the charger and the battery exploded
If you could find out whether East Penn has supplied any batteries to new car manufacturers or any manufacturers in volume, then you could research recalls for those manufacturers resulting from problems with East Penn batteries. The idea is to find applications where thousands of their batteries are in service and therefore get the most chance for failure reports similar to yours

Tags: completely, idea, mechanic, electrolyte, cycle

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