Factory battery terminal covers

Purchased vehicle used. Curious why positive battery terminal has red cover, but negative terminal has no cover. Is that factory, or is it likely battery was replaced and cover removed or not re-installed? V-6 single battery.

 

Factory

 

That's factory config. Hondas are like that, too.

 

Negative is the same as the rest of the frame. Positive is not usually exposed.

 

A cover over the negative terminal isn't needed for safety.

Touching the positive terminal and the vehicle engine/body (negative/ground) with a wrench for example could create a spark.

Since anywhere on the vehicle is already ground, touching the negative terminal to the body will not cause any spark.


Extra credit, sounds more professional:
Between the positive terminal and ground there is a difference in potential - the 12-13 volts of the battery.
Between the negative terminal and ground there is no difference in potential, 0 volts, as they are electrically the same place.

 

That was impressive!!

 

When I was a kid looking for spare pocket change, I picked up a gig doing all of the rough-in work for this wild new technology called "internet that goes through your cable TV." That meant installing those big ugly green node boxes you see pimpling your neighborhood, prewiring the power supply and battery backup systems, basically everything but installing the brain unit and hooking it up to the network.

I say that because there was a day, when hooking up a gang of six car batteries in series (in 90 degree heat), my sweaty meathooks dropped a 7/16 box wrench. That wrench, by fate, happened to land perfectly across both terminals of a battery. The resulting explosion of molten zinc made me very glad that a) I was wearing my glasses that day and b) that I didn't learn this lesson in my own car.


Since that day, I have been super anal about the positive cap, and hyper paranoid about turning a wrench on that terminal - specifically, making sure that my wrench doesnt contact squat when tightening or loosening. Molten terminals to the face hurts like the dickens. But it probably doesnt hurt as bad as toasting a car's ECU.

But to answer the question, butterfingering a wrench around the negative side doesn't do anything for the wonderfully detailed reasons above. The hot side is the positive side. Keep it capped as protection against dropped tools and fumblefingers.