P0517: Battery Temperature Sensor Circuit High
What to do
Driveable. If the battery is visibly swollen, smells acrid, or is hot to the touch, stop and have it inspected — that is a genuine hazard rather than a sensor fault.
What this code means
The battery temperature signal is above its plausible range — usually an open circuit or a signal wire that has found a supply voltage. The mirror of the circuit-low fault.
Worth a moment's thought before dismissing it: a battery genuinely running hot indicates overcharging or an internal fault, and a swollen or hot battery should be treated with care rather than assumed to be a sensor problem.
Likely causes
Start here
- Open circuit in sensor wiring · moderate
- Faulty battery temperature sensor · moderate
Less common
- Signal wire shorted to voltage · moderate
- Overcharging alternator · moderate
Symptoms
Components involved
Information, not instruction
CarGeek is a reference, not a service manual. Its pages are written from public sources and from what other people have found, never from a manufacturer's own service information, so they can be wrong or incomplete for your particular vehicle. Some of what they describe carries real risk: high voltage, fuel under pressure, stored energy, hot and moving parts.
Have anything you intend to act on checked by a trained person against the manufacturer's own procedure for your vehicle. Nothing here replaces that procedure.
Community experience
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What makes one worth reading:
- The car — make, model, year and engine. The same fault behaves differently on each.
- What you measured, not only what you replaced.
- What actually fixed it — or that nothing did, which is worth knowing too.
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