And it went with a BANG.

Without any sort of warnings or signs, ze battery in Jacklyn's car suffered a minor explosion, just like that. Still, quite scary weh I tell you. Started with the normal routine, insert key, turn to ignite the engine but things ended with a BANG. Fortunately for her, at that time the car was parked right in front of my house, imagine how dangerous it would be otherwise.

When it happened, until the moment I noticed thin layers of white colored smoke emitting from the bonnet, I had thought the noise came from somewhere else. Went into panic mode. I quickly ordered her to get out and stay away from the car because from what I can see, she was still totally stoned, mouth agaped.

Looks normal but is actually a goner. It exploded from the left side which you can see is pried open, scary right? The engine is located just left of it.

Then we waited for a while in the drizzle, fearing that the initial explosion might cause some kind of chain reactions. Mom came out as well, to get a clearer picture of the whole thing. About 5 minutes passed, nothing happened. Feeling that it was safe to pop open the bonnet, I went into her car to pull the lever and release the locking mechanism.

Her car was filled with some kind of weird, pungent, suffocating smell causing me to move away quickly whilst choking and coughing terribly. The same smell lingers in the air the moment I lifted her bonnet and I finally realized its from the leakage of unknown substance from the exploded battery.

Fiddled the cables around, checked the other compartments in the engine bay, nothing else seems to be affected. I breathed a sigh of relief. But of course, the lady didn't trust me later when I told her that its only the battery that needs a change, she preferred to worry her head off since Jed is no mechanic. *rolls eyes*

The night was later spent pushing her car away to reverse my car out before pushing her's into the porch instead. Mighty hard work especially when someone lacks the ability to control the steering wheel and the one that does, too heavy for pushing. ><

The next morning, Dad got one of his mechanic friends to come over and inspect the damages, if there's any then replace the battery. Apparently:
# the unknown substance I mentioned above was acidic, hence the smell
# the previous mechanic who changed the battery misplaced the heat absorber, supposed to be covering the side of the battery closer to the engine but instead, it was placed otherwise
# he didn't say anything about the above being the cause, but we suspected it to be
# had to flush and blow dry the engine bay, fearing the acidic substance might cause damages to other components

A clearer picture after it was removed. Its those non-maintenance type of battery where refills are not required at all.

Talk about experienced mechanic, fuh! For a while, it did get me wondering, how come none of the Perodua service center personnels mentioned anything about this, of the many times she took her car over for servicing. I will definitely give them a piece of my mind the next time I see them.

And so, ladies and gentlemen, do pop your bonnet and have a look around the engine bay from time to time, check on the level of radiator coolent and engine oil, refill the battery, and all those stuff. As you can see, who would've thought even the battery could explode.