Today my car wouldn't start, and acted the same way it did about 2 months ago when it had the same problem. I had cleaned the battery cables and boots really well with a wire brush, and it fired right up until today. Cleaned the cables/ boots again, this time with baking soda, and it starts nicely.

Glad it'* not anything more serious, but I'm just wondering... what is causing my cables to get so nasty so fast? The positive one was super gross and I just scrubbed the crap outta it 2 months ago.

The problem arises more often if you don’t drive your car regularly. When the engine is not running and the battery is sitting, the terminals oxidize at a faster rate. This means you need to check the battery terminals more often for corrosion. These deposits are the result of one of several possible chemical exchanges involving vapors and the battery post and/or loose connections.

Covering the clean and assembled connections with petroleum jelly or silicon dielectric grease will slow this down, you are interrupting the chemical process.

The only way to PERMANENTLY prevent this (or at least long-term) is to replace the corroded cable.

You cannot get it all. Cleaning well only buys you limited time. If they're that bad, it'* time for new.

Does that cable appear to have corrosion going down into the actual strands of the wire?

Baking soda is the way to go when cleaning..it neutralizes the acid.

On the positive one, yes. The white crap'* like, permabonded to the tops of the strands. Neg looks fine. Would that mean I might wanna buy new cables like willwren said?

yes. cables are cheap.

X2

Once you have corrosion going down that positive cable, you can only slow it down. Your best bet is to replace at least the positive cable, since that is usually the culprit in these cases. Replace both if you are so inclined.

Alrighty, thanks so much!