[Kris]

It occurred to me that we haven't discussed the battery maintenance yet. As probably all know Murano is equipped with “old” style battery, which requires frequent maintenance. Here is how the battery looks: MO battery

Now how to maintain it (curtousy of hfelknor who posted it on the other forum):

Distilled water.
Often this is around the house anyway as it is used in steam Irons to assure long life.

IF you need to add water (Quite common) pick up the water in the Turkey Baster!
It actually can be much smaller than a Turkey Baster, but I find eye droppers too small. Seems like a chicken baster would be about right.
Slowly add water.

And if you accidentally overfill, take the OLD Cloth and soak up the spill, and throw away the cloth immediately. Wash your hands immediately.
If you splash a little of the acid/water on your clothing, you will end up with holes there, so wear old clothes.

When finished, put the caps back on "hard finger tight".

It's much easier than it sounds.

When this battery goes bad, replace with a Maintenance Free battery of the appropriate size.


A word of warning:

BE SAFETY CONSCIOUS!

 

[dmtreff]

Explosive hydrogen….Acidic liquids and vapors….Electrical burns….Strains, sprains, hernias and compressed discs. All of these hazards arise when servicing, charging, or jumping the common lead-acid battery found in cars and trucks. The hazards can be minimized by following a few common sense safety rules.

Eye Protection: First, always wear safety goggles or a face shield when working around a battery. Batteries contain corrosive acids that are capable of eating away metals. It takes just one droplet to cause serious eye damage. Just popping open the vent cap may throw out a droplet. A short or faulty regulator can cause the electrolyte to boil, releasing acid vapors. A fault within the battery could cause it to explode, throwing fragments of the case and acid.

Fire Protection: Lead-acid batteries produce flammable hydrogen gas while being charged. This highly explosive gas, generated within the cells, will expand and seep out of the vent caps. A cigarette, tool, or spark from any source could ignite the gas, causing the battery to explode. Always charge in a well ventilated area. Remember too that the battery is receiving a charge and releasing hydrogen when the car is running, not just when hooked up to a battery charger.

Let's be careful out there...

 

[SugarRushMurano]

How long the factory battery will last ..

if no maintenance is performed upon it?

I have never done this kind of batery maintenance before and considering the hazardous descriptions you guys mentioned, i'd rather not doing it myself. :4:

 

[Kris]

I posted it because on the other forum people were complaining that dealers were not doing maintenance on the battery as it was "maintenance free". Since most of the Muranos are still under the warranty I would advise you to make sure Nissan service departments are doing their job.......

I had this type of battery in the past. It lasted 5 years (it was still good when I sold the car!). All it required was from time to time check the water level and top it up, check the battery connections. I did not have any problems with doing maintenance myself, but then again I did have relevant experience.

A word of warning – these batteries can be messy. So if anybody decides to top the water level up make sure you do not overfill it. Otherwise the spill will corrode the car body….

 

[dmtreff]

Battery Life

Over time, the fluid level will decrease due to evaporation. Charging a battery causes the fluid to bubble slowly, and that will lead to evaporation of the fluid inside. All batteries are vented to prevent them from bursting. As the battery is charged (all the time while the engine is running), this process happens very slowly. Once the fluid level drops below the top of the plates and they are exposed to oxygen, the battery will lose efficiency. Then one day, you turn the key and you get nothing. As for how long, it's hard to say. This procedure can be dangerous, but it's not all that bad once you know the ground rules. If you follow the procedure below, you'll be ahead of 90% of most "do it yourselfers" and should be relatively safe from harm.

Perform routine maintenance of batteries regularly. Check terminals periodically for cleanliness and good electrical connections. Make sure the connection is tight. A poor connection can cause your car's electrical system to malfunction and prevent the battery from charging properly. Inspect the battery case for cleanliness and evidence of damage. clean off dirt and corrosion regularly. Check the level of electrolyte periodically.

Some tips:
Wear eye protection

Wear old clothes

Wear rubber (latex) gloves if you have some.

Do not permit smoking, electric sparks, or open flames near batteries while servicing.

If you clean the top of the battery, do it with the caps ON to keep the dirt out of the battery. I recommend doing this BEFORE you begin the service procedure.

When you take a cell cap off, avoid contaminating battery cap undersides by placing them upside down on the battery case. This will help keep debris from falling into the cell.

Use only DISTILLED water, which you can buy at any good drug store. Tap water contains minerals which will damage your battery. Use a syringe or large eye dropper and GO SLOWLY. What else do you have besides time? AVOID overfilling the cell. The battery has a limited amount of acid in it. If there is an overflow, some acid will surely come out (having been displaced by water), which will lower the efficiency of that cell. Generally you want to fill to at least 1/4" above the top of the plates. Most batteries have a fill tube on each cell that will cause the water to be exactly the right level when it just touches the bottom of the fill tube. Use this as a guide. If the fluid is already at that level when you open the cell, no additional fluid is necessary in that cell.

If the electrolyte is spilled or splashed on the skin or eyes, immediately flush the area with large quantities of fresh water for a minimum of 15 minutes. If the electrolyte is in the eyes, be sure the upper and lower eyelids are pulled out sufficiently to allow the fresh water to flush under the eyelids. If you get it in your eyes, seek immediate medical attention after flushing your eyes thoroughly.

 

[Eric L.]

The factory battery on my 97 Maxima lasted exactly 3 years, the amount of time it was technically warrantied for! Its really a cheap battery, and its really penny pinching for Nissan to use an unsealed battery.

One thing I would also recommend when servicing your battery (its really quite easy) is to install those little felt washers (99 cents at any parts store) under the terminal posts and grease the terminals with high temp lithium grease (large tube from home depot is $2). This keeps the battery from outgassing as much during normal usage (all batteries do this) and that nasty white corrosion from building up on the terminals.

When my Murano battery goes, I will look into getting an optima red top.

 

[SugarRushMurano]

Any one kind enough to post picture of how to ....

do this :

When you take a cell cap off, avoid contaminating battery cap undersides by placing them upside down on the battery case. This will help keep debris from falling into the cell.

Where is the cell cap?

 

[Kris]

may do this tonight as I'm going to finally start ZAINO project

 

[dmtreff]

Cell Cap

Where is the cell cap?

Go all the way back to the first post in this thread. Clisk on the link labeled "MO Battery". The photo that comes up is a Murano Battry. Each of the 6 round things lined up down the center of the battery is a cell cap. You need to check the water level in each cell. They are not connected. The caps should unscrew.

 

[SugarRushMurano]

Should the negative and positive terminal

be disconected first before performing thi stask or it does not matter?

Thanks for the "cell-cap" location tips :O)

 

[dmtreff]

No you don't need to disconnect the battery.

 

[jaak]

You can check fluid levels without disconnecting the battery, but keep metal objects away!!! Think about bracelets, watch bands, wrenches... The last thing you want is to generate a spark in the area. When a battery gasses it's blowing off water that's been separated into hydrogen and oxygen in it's most explosive ratio. A spark, is a bad thing around that.

If you decide to disconnect a battery, always remove the ground first. While some people might think this is backwards, the reality is, a wrench shorted to ground, on the ground (-ve or black, or not red) terminal means nothing, while on the +ve can mean an awful lot of trouble!

Once the ground is disconnected, then it's safe to accidentally short the +ve to the chassis ground of the vehicle, as there's no connection to the -ve side anymore. Connecting is the reverse. +ve first, then ground.

The same applies for boosting. I normally connect the +ve's first, then the grounds. Usually the last ground connection is made to the alternator bracket, or some other sturdy grounded part, that is away from the battery. If you are going to spark, keep it away from a battery that could be gassing under a heavy charge. Same goes for the disconnect. Remove the ground that's furthest from the battery, first. Once you've broken the charge circuit between the vehicles this way, then you can take off the other ground connection and the +ves...

I've never seen it, but heard of a few batteries blowing up, by careless or stupid actions. Always think about what you're doing first, around Lead Acid batteries, before you do....

 

[Jim C]

All good posts and advice about dealing with batteries. Listers dealing with old-style batteries, however, should not be overly intimidated by the maintenace required. Really, while batteries have the POTENTIAL to be dangerous, just following a lot of the common sense precautions will make battery maintenance safe and easy. Folks probably do a lot of this already without thinking too much about it. For example, I always wear old clothes when working on my motorcycle, cars or other stuff in the garage. Dirty stuff is going to happen when you work on engines of any kind. I also try to wear latex gloves - again, wrenching is dirty work.

With respect to battery life - if you take care of the battery, average life for lead acid batteries is three to five years. That's average life. Some may get less (usually covered by a warranty), some may get more. This applies to ALL lead-acid batteries - maintenace free or not. The old-style battery in my wife's VW Cabrio only lasted three years. The maintenance-free battery on my Camaro lasted five years. (Makes me wonder about the battery life in all those HEV's. Replacing THAT battery pack will cost a pretty penny!).

With respect to battery types, believe it or not, there are still a lot of "old style" batteries out there - including ones sold as replacements. The cap covers may differ. For example, when I replaced the battery on my Camaro, I got a Sears DieHard Silver. Its an old-style, but instead of individual caps, it has a two strips that cover the holes over the battery. But they are still out there and used quite regularly. Maintenance-free batteries have the leg up on not having to add water (they tend to be sealed to capture evaporated water - e.g., no vents. Or they use a gel instead of water), but other than that, there really is no difference in reliability or longevity, all other things being equal.

Keep the battery posts clean (with a dry cloth) and watch the water level and you should get many years of service out of your Mo battery.

 

[UncaDanno]

Personally, I prefer the lead/acid, deep-cycle batteries over maintenance-free.
For one, the lead/acids take a bit longer to drain down to rock-dead than the maintenance-frees.
I have yet to get a maintenance-free battery to last more than three years.
With proper maintenance (and making sure I keep 'em charged), the lead/acids have lasted quite a bit longer. F'rinstance:
Sears Die-Hard that lasted 11 years, in three cars, during which I let it go almost completely dry three times. A fill-up with distilled water brought it back to life each time.
Interstate in the Town Ride has been there seven years.
Interstate in the tractor (a JD) has been in service almost 12 years.
Interstate in the truck has been in use five years.

 

[strafaci]

Optima's

I've used an Optima Red Top in my Jeep for years, and they are great. Even after leaving my lights on all night, I was able to get my Jeep to start in the morning. Also, they are much better in the cold.

However, for the price, they are probably not worth the investment. On my Jeep, I had tons of lights, wenches, etc., so there was a real need for a heavy duty battery.

If you want further Optima testimony, let me know !!

 

[dklanecky1]

I've got the same type of battery in my 00 Maxima with 139,000 miles and it's the original one. They will last a long time with an annual fillup of distilled water.

 

[Eric L.]

A 4 year old car with 140,000 miles - you must do a lot of highway driving. Short drives where the battery is not given enough time to recharge fully is what kills a battery. You got pretty lucky with your Nissan battery.

This is probably mentioned here before, but the stock battery is warrantied for 3 years or 36,000 miles (a separate warranty from the manufacturers bumper to bumper warranty). If the stocker fails during the first year, it gets replaced for free. If it fails over the next 2 years, it gets replaced at a prorated rate.

 

[Dookie]

I have an Optima Red-Top in my Murano now, mainly because of the stereo current draw. I had one in my previous cars and have never left me stranded anywhere. In the heat out here in Vegas, regular batteries don't last that long; 2 years tops.

 

[Kris]

I tend to agree with Dookie. I used to live in climate similar to Arizona or Nevada. First surprise I got was the carr battery - it would not last longer than 3 years!

So for all of us living in rather hot climates we need better batteries and replace them on a regular basis.

 

[rrodfa2]

Question: I live in a cold area, I know the power the battery supplies during cold weather drops, is it OK to get a stronger battery as the one on the MO with intelligent keys?