[JimD]

Intermittant issues are the worst. While there may not be an issue with your car right now there certainly appears to have been previously. Waiting for it to appear again would not make me feel good.

With respect to battery replacement I think it is best to respect the system our cars have and register your battery. There are potentially two separate steps. If you replace your battery like for like, then all you need to do is register. From what I read, if you do this yourself the options are in "Tool32" and it is an easier process than most coding. If you switch from what I think of as a "normal" battery with an electrolyte that is free to move around to a AGM battery where the electrolyte is in a mat, then you need to code the car - do a bit more work. If you change the Amp-hours of the battery, you should code the car. That is done using NCSExpert, if you are doing it yourself, and you work in the CAS module of the car. The process involves hooking your car to your laptop using the OBDII port in the drivers footwell and a cable you have to buy. You run the "free" software on your computer to change the settings. NCSExpert involves downloading the existing module (CAS for this), editing the file, and uploading it back to the car. You want to save the original file just in case something doesn't go as planned. Tool32 appears to be a more typical program where you just find the setting you want to change and change it.

The BTtool, a cable with it's own software for a little under $300, will apparently register but not code. So you could do a like for like replacement but not switch the battery type or size.

I'm not sure if the battery exploded in the thread mentioned above because the car was not registered or coded for the battery replacement or because gas from the battery built up in the trunk and got ignited by a spark or possibly the special positive terminal meant to disconnnect the car in an emergency went off. Or the battery could have developed an internal short and both exploded and set off the protective device in the positive terminal (which may have prevented a fire).

I'm hoping to get several more years out of my battery but when I replace it, I plan to register it and recode if necessary. If I didn't register, I'm not sure exactly what issues it would cause but it doesn't seem like a risk I want to take. I don't want to spend $400 on a battery either but it seems like I will not need to. I just bought a "Gold" diehard, not their best or worst, for $120 for my SUV. Something like this and some work by me on the car to change settings seems very possible and significantly cheaper.

Jim