A Clean Battery is a Happy Battery

I first heard this statement from a fellow Marine while we were driving across the Jordanian desert. He was cleaning a battery on the 5-ton truck he was operating at the time and that phrase kind of always stuck with me.  In this modern world of high tech vehicles I still believe that battery maintenance is a vital part of overall car maintenance.  So as a part of the regularly scheduled vehicle maintenance, I will do a battery maintenance as well... typically every 30k miles or so.  So why does a batter get so gunked up even if your good about keeping other things clean?  It has to do with gasses venting from the battery reacting with the lead posts.  It could happen to either post but I've seen it more on the negative side (anode pole) because that's the side that is susceptible to corrosion during charging.  Here's what I do to service the battery:

1. Remove the battery and connecting brackets.
2. Pour a little distilled water on the top of the battery
3. Sprinkle the top with baking soda
4. Using a wire brush, scrub the top and sides of the battery
5. Rise the top and sides with more distilled water
6. Dry with paper towels
7. Using a standard screwdriver, pop the cell caps off (See Note below)
8. Top off the cells with distilled water (only to the bottom of the plastic)
9. Dry off the top again with paper towels.
10. Replace the cell caps
11. Using a battery post cleaner, clean off the lead posts
12. Similarly clean the connector leads
13. Reinstall the battery
14. Spray a little bit of corrosion preventer on the posts.

Notably, some batteries are considered "maintenance free" (which isn't really true) but actually means that the cells are not accessible.  Simply skip steps 7-10 but by all means still do the rest of the service.

before

after