A couple of weeks ago, as I was putting in my new Needswings oil catch can, I noticed some brown visible through the little area next to the battery. My first thought was "how the heck did mud get in there?" and got ready to clean it out.



After pulling out the battery, I stood there staring in shock!



Not just rust, but the acid ate through a vacuum line under there.



The only thing I can figure is when I bought the car, the dealer was so proud of the fact that they just replaced the battery. I thought that it just went dead and didn't give it a second thought. It must have cracked, exploded or leaked severly, and they replaced it without cleaning it up at all. Needless to say, I will be checking everywhere regularly from now on!

So I picked my jaw up off the floor, wiped away the tears and started on the repairs. The battery tray comes out easily - only 2 nuts and it just lifts out. I disconnected all the cables to the electronics, loosened all the mounting hardware for the ECU box (there are 3 nuts holding it on in the passenger footwell that are nearly impossible to get to ) and was able to lift up the ECU box sufficiently to be able to reach under it. Got out my trusty wire brush with a very long extension and scrubbed everything down to bare metal.



With the metal cleaned up, I wiped everything down with alcohol and used some rusty metal primer.



Fixed the broken vacuum line and repainted everything...



And now I can sleep at night again!

The moral of the story - don't leave any stone (battery) unturned because Rust Never Sleeps!