Car battery question: Must vent to outside of vehicle?

Djeet

The vehicle is a 2004 X3, and the battery is in the boot. Meaning you open the liftgate and you have smallish rear compartment behind the back seat (this compartment is contiguous with the cabin airspace). Under a panel there's the battery sitting on top of the spare; I do not believe this panel the battery resides under forms an airtight seal. All the batteries I'm looking up say that they must be vented to the outside of the vehicle. How do I do that given the battery is inside the vehicle?

If I use one of these am I risking slowly gassing myself?

Mr. Bookworm

OK sorry

Eggplant Wizard

Is there not a rubber tube that hooks to the battery and vents the gases outside the compartment? That's how it was on my last car.

zagdrob

No, you should be fine. In my car (2000 Pontiac) the battery is under the back seat too, no special ventilation.

I think the modern sealed batteries don't have the same problems as the old ones. At worst, the old style of battery should only be venting hydrogen, so while it's a fire / explosion risk if it's in a confined space, it's not really any health danger.

Djeet

Thanks all. I'd have installed it anyways since a non-starting car it pretty much worthless to me.

This thread can be closed.

Bendit

I think the modern sealed batteries don't have the same problems as the old ones

That's true. They are called "sealed" batteries now.

In the old days, they weren't sealed, and you needed to hook up an overflow tube to them. I haven't seen those on cars or motorcycles in a long ass time.

Also, all the batteries in the UPS Battery Backup units that you buy these days are sealed, and they are kept indoors. Sometimes right under your desk.

bowen

They are pretty much car batteries through and through.

Djeet

Thanks Eggplant Wizard, found the tube leading to the exterior when I removed the dead battery.

As a sidenote, I spent an hour and a half learning that the damn thing doesn't have a manual trunk release. Oh the manual says there's one and points it out in a terrible drawing, but it isn't there. It's like the engineers/designers were being intentionally hostile to owners. Take this button on the environmental controls. It has a snowflake on it. Do I press it when it's cold outside, or do I press it to make it cold inside?

L Ron Howard

It snows dolla dolla bills, y'all!

illig

actually you should look at the battery again - you need a maintenance free absorbed glass matt (AGM) type battery (like the super expensive Optimas) if you don't have a vent. you'll need to add a vent if you use an older style lead acid vented battery (which are most cheaper batteries)

check out some BMW specific forums such as:
http://www.bimmerfest.com/forums/showpost.php?p=3408146&postcount=21

Djeet

The car shipped with a "maintenance free" battery which I think was of the gel variety(I'm keeping it cause it looks neat and worth more than $12) but it still connected to the vent tube. New battery is what I'm used to (remove able caps to the cells so I can top up the acid/water mix), though it has a vent nozzle like OEM battery. If anyone is interested I can post a pic.