I was driving home from my friends place when I noticed my battery light and my brake light came on. Every time I hit the brakes or hit the throttle the lights get brighter. I pull over at the nearest park and I shut the car off and let it sit for a minute then I turned it on, same problem.

I then poped the hood and made sure my connections to the battery are secure since I had a problem with the negative going loose once (I was hoping that was the problem...) but it wasnt. I called my friend down to the park,whose a mechanic, and he told me to shut everything off until he comes down. He came down to the park and took the car around for a spin to see if anything is wrong.

He took it around maybe 1/2 mile and said theirs nothing wrong with the car and the battery light and the brake light were not coming on. He gets out of the car and I notice that theirs smoke coming from underneath the hood. We pop the hood and we see that the smoke is coming from the wires that are leading to the positive terminal!

He then told me that the problem might be from a bad alternator, short circuit, or it might be my battery . He also said that I shouldn't drive the car and have a tow truck tow it to his shop on monday.

What do you guys think is the problem?? Do you think this is convered under warrenty? And if it was the battery do you think that it might be covered under warrenty? I have the Optima Yellow top and in order to get it to work I had to bend the 90 degree terminal thing and make it straight.

 

I think the problem might be from a bad alternator, short circuit, or it might be the battery

 

Yes thats what my mechanic said but which one might it lean more towards?

 

yeah, i was being a smart ***, i coped what the mechanic said

if anything id say the battery since its aftermarket

 

try borrowing another car battery.... see if you get the same result... if not.. then that optima is garbage.. get ur $$ back from that warranty... if you get the same result... move to step #2.. .. check the wires... nothing suspicious there?? the mech has to look at your alternator


can anyone else add to this??

 

maybe a bad connection. Use a wire brush and scrub the terminals. Make sure its super tight. Then go from there. Also check all fuses (especially the one ON the battery wire). These are free/cheeps things to check first. If it's still acting wierd, then get you alternator checKed. Take you time to think it out, it might help save you some money.

 

Ill try that in the morning its getting late now, also my mechanic said that theirs a VERY good chance the car can catch fire and get totalled due to a short circuit so he told me to keep the driving to a bare minimum or just try not to drive it at all until it gets to his shop.

 

Bump

 

def dont move that car. Also it sounds to me like maybe your voltage regulator is shot and your overloading the battery. Heres the bad news. If that is the case then you are going to need a new alternator and battery and probably new battery cables.

Good luck and i hope im wrong.

 

Would Optima be able to replace the battery free of charge?

 

If it's a manufacturing defect in their battery. If your car destroys their battery you're SOL.

 

Update: I tested my battery and I got a reading of 15V which I believe is good, next I loosen the negative connection and turned the car on then i disconnected it completely to test the alternator which came out to be fine.

I inspected the wires leading to the postive and I saw electrical tape that was burned off so their must have been a short. I think that the postive was completely uncovered in the past and something might of touched it and I got that problem.

I wraped the wires in electrical tape and I rigged a contraption to cover the postivie from the outside world lol. Ill post pics up in a few1

 

how exactly did you test the battery? Just checking the voltage is not enough. Take it to a battery place, they can load test the battery, and check the alternator at the same time

 

I went to advance

 

Yeah, you're positive cable was grounding out, you will have to replace the battery cables, and any other wiring that might have gotten cooked by accident. Also, get all of your wiring inspected after you replace the cables. Hopefully nothing got screwed up. But, from the sound of it, the lights that came on were from the ECU being affected by the short. Make sure everything is running right after you get it fixed, and if you have problems with it no running properly, you might want to have you ECU looked at.