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Hello,
I bought a 2003 Lexus LS430 late last year and have been loving the car. Last winter shortly after I bought it I started getting a lot of weird behavior – sunroof opening intermittently, wheel speed sensor warning, headlight leveling alarm, etc.
I found that the positive terminal on the battery had a lot of corrosion so I cleaned it up. Not sure if it’s just coincidental with the changes in seasons, but suddenly all of the error messages went away.
Recently I’m starting to get intermittent “Check VSC” messages with the ABS light and when I pull the codes for it with the paperclip trick, the codes are for the left and right front wheel hub sensors (31, 32 and 36).
I just got back from a holiday today and had a look at the positive battery terminal again and it’s full of blue corrosion again. Attached is a picture. Why is it doing this? Defective battery? Parasitic drain?
I noticed that the positive terminal is copper and the other one seems like grey metal (steel / aluminum)? There is never any corrosion on the negative terminal.
Any advice you can give to prevent this reoccurring would be appreciated. It is very annoying.
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I’ve seen this many times in my career. BTW, good find on your part, well done. That said, it’s the battery. The way some batteries are vented they are prone to corrosion. The only batteries I’ve seen no corrosion on, and I mean after several years no corrosion whatsoever, are Panasonic batteries. Good luck finding them these days though.
There is little you can do in my experience besides cleaning as a maintenance. Those felt rings don’t work, the spray can actually make the problem worse because it can seep down between the terminal and the cable connection. I used to put a small dab of grease on the terminal to help keep air and moisture out. This is sometimes effective, but not 100% from what I’ve seen.
In the end I think it’s going to be periodic cleaning that will do the trick. Keep us updated if you find another fix.
Thanks Eric. Can you recommend any brands / models of car batteries that last a long time, resist leakage and corrosion and are good in cold weather? We have very cold winters in Montreal.
Panasonic if you can find them. You also might consider some of the performance batteries that contain gel instead of liquid. The short of it is that the cheaper the battery, the more likely to create issues. You really do get what you pay for with batteries in my experience.
Just an update in case anyone is interested. Replaced the OEM Lexus battery with a Costco Kirkland Signature battery. Comes with 700 CCA (vs. 585 factory) and 3 month full replacement warranty. I also replaced the positive battery terminal, cleaned all the corrosion and put some battery grease on the terminals.
So far so good. No weird error messages and no corrosion yet!
Thanks for the advice.
glad you fixed that problem. Yeah often times when they corrode like that it’s just a sign that the battery is wearing out and needs replacing. The oem lexus battery should be fine, I would say that optima batteries don’t leak acid because they are gel batteries but they honestly don’t last as long as they used to and are pretty expensive.
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