Coke Is It

More Than A Tasty Soft Drink?

Have you ever seen that email that goes around periodically talking about all the cleaning miracles that Coke can do?  It claims that police always carry Coke in the trunk to clean up blood on the highway after a wreck.

I always kind of took these with a grain of salt, figuring they were more urban legend than effective cleaning solution.  I've known and worked with thousands of police officers over the years and have never known one to carry Coke in the patrol car for anything more than refreshment.

Today I had to put a new battery in my wife's car.  It had been starting sluggishly for the past few days, and last time that happened a couple years ago, the battery completely died in a Wal Mart parking lot (talk about convenient.  Today, I went ahead and bought a new battery before it died.  Opening the hood, I saw that the terminals and clamps were horribly corroded.  I looked on the internet and saw baking soda and water, scrubbed with a toothbrush, to be suggested, so that is what I planned to do.  I saw a few that suggested Coke to clean them, but the suggestions came across as being from people who had received the aforementioned email.

We stopped at my in-laws' house so I could change the battery out while my wife visited her mother.  When I asked for a plastic cup to mix up my baking soda and water, my MIL said to pour Coke on and it would clean right up.  I was skeptical, but I had half a Diet Coke in the car that had gotten warm, so I figured I'd go ahead and try it. 

It instantly foamed up and dissolved the corrosion, leaving the terminals and clamps nearly new looking.  A squirt with the hose and all the Coke was gone and they were spotless.

I still doubt the whole Coke dissolves blood on the pavement thing, but for cleaning up acidic battery corrosion, it is just the ticket.  Super fast, super easy, and a good "tool" to have on standby.  However, Coke will not dissolve teeth, nails or T-bone steaks overnight.