The damage done? Charging battery wrong terminals?

Okay so rule number #1 i violated, doing anything that requires thought with 2-3 hrs of sleep 4 days a week.

Whatever its excuses, so i charged my tundra battery with the cables reversed. I plugged the negative with positive and positive with negative from my notebook size car battery charger.

I didnt even realize i made this mistake until maybe 70 miles of driving. I got home, parked it to unload groceries and i tried moving tundra back in garage. Truck was dead i hooked charger on it again and saw i hooked it wrong again.

I was pissed at myself, I spoke to some toyota mechanics. They told me check all fuses and get a new battery.

At the battery shop the clerk said yes your old battery has a short and its completely dead.

I put a new battery in and all seems fine.

Anyone have similar experiences if youve made this mistake?

 

Can’t answer if damage was done, but I highly recommend you get a battery charger that is capable of detecting reversed polarity. Most modern ones these days can do that and won’t charge.

 

im with @yakeng
I'm suprised that the charger didn't just shut down. Most have reverse polarity detection, unless you were using one of the old school battery-boiler chargers.

If you did damage, you'd know. Christmas light on the dash and nothing work. You are probably fine.

 

Post your charger. I bet it wasn't even charging it if you had it hooked up backwards.

 

Was gonna say same thing. Most anything other than a giant roll around “antique” has polarity detection and protects us from ourselves in our moments of weakness.

 

I dont think it charged anything
But only killed the battery. Only had it on for couple of
Hours. No wonder originally no light was “on” indicating charging.

charger is from harbor freight.

 

Update?

 

I put in new battery bought an Amazon volt meter.

trucks been running fine, volt
Shows 12 when turned off, on and running is around 13.

 

Since you're brave enough to admit this on a public forum, I'll submit my own (similar) mistake for everyone's amusement. I once reverse connected jumper cables from my Tundra to an Acura RL. There was a small spark when I made the last connection, and after a few minutes of idling the Tundra the cables got very hot. Double checked the connections and realized my mistake.

Ended up replacing the Acura battery, which may have already been toast. Both vehicles have been fine ever since. This was about 6 months ago.

 

Tundrabrew, same stuff happened to me too. Except i was helping jumping my buddies camry. He hooked up his car wrong it blew a huge fuse on my
Tacoma.

 

I like to try to be a helpful human when I can and jump start a fellow human who’s stranded.

Too many times this has almost happened to me…which is why I finally justified buying one of those NOCO jump packs.

I can jump my own vehicle if alone or let someone else jump their own without involving my vehicle in the mix. Plus, they’re smart devices, so polarity and other protections built in them.