[John Willett]

Chris, don't forget to remove one of the blanking plugs in the top of the battery for venting.

"Hello Umbongo",

I might have asked You this before - if so Sorry that I cannot remember your answer:

Obviously from your advice to Chris there certain types of Car Battery that have to be Vented / have a blanking plug removed.

I cannot understand why I have never come across having to do this during the decades that I have been driving for.

I would always buy what I perceived to be the `Best Quality` Car Battery for my Vehicles over the Years - now I have a Bosch `Silver Technology` Battery in my Xtrail and before that I had a Halfords `Calcium Technology` Battery [manufacturer unknown] - neither of these had plugs that needed to be removed for Venting.

During the previous decades I assume that I would have been buying `Lead Acid` Batteries for my vehicles but I don`t recall ever having to `remove a plug for Venting` - and I have never seen that instruction on any Label on a Car Battery.

During the first 10 Years that I had been driving [60`s & 70`s] I had a lot of different Cars - I don`t recall replacing any Batteries on those Cars - but I have bought and replaced at least 8 Car Batteries during the rest of my Driving life on Cars and Vans that I did not own from New.

Something that I am aware of consciously doing in the past was to ensure that I bought `Maintenance Free` Car Batteries ever since that Term started to be used - which is quite a few Years ago.

Could it have been that because I always bought `Good Quality` Car Batteries they have been `Maintenance Free` and have not had the requirement to remove a plug for Venting - although I don`t remember when this type of Battery was available ?

As I am sure You can imagine I would be amazed to now find out that `Venting the Battery` is something that I should have known about / and possibly should have done at times [?] for most of my Driving life.

I have never had a problem with a Battery that was caused because it should have been Vented or that would have alerted Me to the need to do so - I do know that Years ago if Charging Batteries you had to remove the Plugs while on Charge.

Can You let Me know more about this `Venting the Battery` and what Type of Batteries need this Please.

Regards,

Chris

Interesting comments.

I only remember having to remove, or loosen, the caps for venting when mains charging batteries 40 years ago and, even then, never when they were used normally in the vehicle.

Those were the days when batteries had to be topped up with distilled water every now and again.

But never recently.

I, too, am puzzled.

 

[John Willett]

Hi ChrisM

Have a read of the link below, hopefully it answers your query.

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?t=1270623

Best regards
Milton :biggrin:

Reading this it seems that you only have to remove a cap if the battery clearly says you have to.

If there is no instruction on the battery saying that you need to remove a cap, then you don't need to and shouldn't do it.