Hooked up the battery wrong

[beetle6986]

Did something stupid today while in a hurry. I got the car out of storage and had to jump start it. I drove it to lunch for half an hour thinking that would be enough to charge it, but then it wouldn't start again. I didn't have cables with me, but I did have the battery to my 04 Cobra in the trunk. I was in a rush to get back to work for meetings so I quickly swapped the batteries not realizing the + and - poles were on different sides for the batteries. So I ended up hooking it up wrong for a few seconds until I realized my mistake. I hooked it up the correct way and drove back to work.

I think it may have messed up a couple things.
1. My IAT2 temps were sky high at like 150 degrees all the time. I assume the heat exchanger pump stopped working. I verified that the fuse is ok.
2. The radio says Audio off and I can't get any sound out of it even playing songs on car play. I unplugged the battery and plugged it back and and then reset the sync 3 system, but i didn't fix it.
3. The power steering seems to be acting weird while the car is parked or maneuvering in a parking lot at slow speeds. Its almost like the power steering isnt working all the time.

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[ice445]

Unfortunately installing a battery backwards is an easy way to fry lots of modules on modern cars. Have the dealer look at it, there's probably lots of stored BCM codes. Good luck to you.

 

[ORRadtech]

Unfortunately installing a battery backwards is an easy way to fry lots of modules on modern cars. Have the dealer look at it, there's probably lots of stored BCM codes. Good luck to you.

This^^^^^

Also, the steering is electric and not cheap or easy to fix.

 

[sotek2345]

Oof - I did that by mistake on my old truck (2010 F150). Thankfully way less electronics and and the fuse/cabling from the battery took most of the damage. Very random, but it did cook my air blend door actuator for some reason and I had to tear apart my dash to replace that.

Best of luck!

 

[Andrew@Lethal]

Sorry to hear, sounds like you will be taking the car to the dealer. Hopefully you can finagle them to cover it under warranty.

 

[vanquishvzla]

one of my salesman did this to a bmw like 2 months ago... car won't start now... $3000 repair... car is still sitting in a corner because we won't put $3k on a $8k car...

idk why modern cars won't have something to protect this... if they are putting blind spot sensor, auto breaking, auto parking, to help all this idiots who can't drive, a reverse jumping protection should be standard

 

[TexasRebel]

Reverse polarity protection is an expensive luxury on automotive parts. Some modules have it built in, some modules rely on a system wide RPP.

In modern times the most common RPP is simply making the +/- posts different diameters so one clamp won't fit the other post.

 

[Elp_jc]

Hopefully you can finagle them to cover it under warranty.

Maybe with other more questionable accidents, but unfortunately, something as obvious as that, no way in hell it'd fly with Ford.

In modern times the most common RPP is simply making the +/- posts different diameters so one clamp won't fit the other post.

They ARE different diameters now (look at them)... but probably not large enough to deter a determined owner to make them fit. Ha ha.

 

[vanquishvzla]

in our case was trying to jump the battery... the connected the jump box backwards

 

[ORRadtech]

in our case was trying to jump the battery... the connected the jump box backwards

Might be worth investing in more modern jump packs that have reverse polarity protection.
My Li Ion one has it. Don't know if it works as I haven't accidentally done it and don't think it's wise to intentionally try...

 

[vanquishvzla]

Might be worth investing in more modern jump packs that have reverse polarity protection.
My Li Ion one has it. Don't know if it works as I haven't accidentally done it and don't think it's wise to intentionally try...

we have multiple for obvious reasons... to our look, they used the one that is just a Big ass battery with 2 cables... a red one and a black one... everything on a dolly lol...

we have 2 other jump box that will start beeping if you connect it wrong...

 

[Zathras]

Oof - I did that by mistake on my old truck (2010 F150). Very random, but it did cook my air blend door actuator for some reason and I had to tear apart my dash to replace that.

Interesting...when I needed a jump start on my old 2011 Mustang, after the jump I immediately noticed that one of those blend door actuators started making that banging noise. They must be sensitive to electrical spikes or polarity issues.

 

[beetle6986]

Sorry to hear, sounds like you will be taking the car to the dealer. Hopefully you can finagle them to cover it under warranty.

I do my own work on all of my cars and this car isn't a daily driver. So it's not a big deal if it isn't fixed right away. It just pisses me off that I made such a stupid mistake because I was in a hurry. Older cars have longer cables and I'm always pretty careful when connecting batteries because the cables can easily be switched. When I put this battery in, the cables only reached one terminal. I just didn't realize the poles were located on opposite sides on those two batteries.

I charged the new battery and drove the car to work yesterday. The alternator isn't charging, but I expected that to be blown diodes. The steering on the car was perfectly fine until I got home at the end of the day and the battery voltage dropped down into the 10s. So I think I just need to put the new alternator in. I'll do that today.

I found a blown fuse for the radio. So I'm sure that's the issue with the audio.

I'll jump the intercooler pump relay today to see if maybe the relay is just blown. If that doesn't work, I'll check for power at the pump. If it has power, then I'll just order a new pump.

Everything else seems to be perfectly normal.

 

[DougS550]

Unfortunately installing a battery backwards is an easy way to fry lots of modules on modern cars. Have the dealer look at it, there's probably lots of stored BCM codes. Good luck to you.

I did that once to on my RAM truck. Replaced battery, and reset hard faults on ECM. Worked good after that. They build allot of circuitry protection system just for these times.

 

[beetle6986]

So I replaced blown fuses for the radio and put in a new powermaster alternator. The Radio works fine. However, the system still says charging system service now. So I'm not sure where to go with that next.

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