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Porsche-O-Phile Porsche-O-Phile is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2004
Location: A Rock Surrounded by a Whole lot of Water
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Why do batteries die?

I was thinking about this tonight - both the battery on my wife's Toyota and the one on my motorcycle died recently and I'm wondering what the chemistry/physics is behind this - why exactly do these things work, and why do they fail over time?

My wife's car had a "regular" car battery that you could open up a cover on the top and look inside the cells. I noticed the electrolyte (distilled water) level in one of the cells had gotten low, probably why it died. Why does this happen exactly?

My motorcycle battery was a sealed, "maintenance free" battery - why should this ever lose electrolyte? Does H2 gas produced somehow permeate through the walls of the battery over long periods of time or what?

Scientist/engineer types - edumicate away.
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Old 08-31-2007, 08:45 PM
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