I also forgot to mention this weird, blue foamy-looking stuff I found around the positive terminal on my battery What the heck is that?

might be acid. get the terminls cleaned or change them.

I just had it inspected last week, so I'm hoping they would've mentioned it if it were anything heinous?

Probably nothing to serious Ams, just make sure the contacts remain clean or you will have problems.

Kewl...there'* a lot of stuff under the hood that could probably use a bit of a cleaning anyway...as long as I can figure out how to do it without damaging anything...

Good items to use when cleaning battery messes up are either baking soda and water(like no one knew that ) but I prefer Coca-Cola. It'* a lot cheaper and you can have a drink while you clean!

Seriously? I'd heard of that before, but never dared to try it...hmmmmm....

My wife'* Saturn had a corrosion problem at the positive terminal becuase of a poor install I did on her amplifier. I knew I needed to replace the terminal entirely, but in the meantime she was'nt able to get her car to turn over from time to time becuase of all the corrosion. She just kept pooring coke on it as needed to keep it clean until I fixed it real proper like.

if it is an ac delco battery the terminals (on the batt itself) will probably fall off. this has happened to about 80% of the delco batteries i have changed or observed being changed...