How to change your car battery
[MUSIC]
You know the sound, your batteries dead and there is no good time.
The good news is though, that replacing your battery is probably the easiest real job under the hood.
Aside from the battery itself, you're gonna want some gloves.
It's kinda a nasty part to deal with.
This spray protects the terminals, we'll use that later.
You'll need a wrench to battery holder and terminals off, hopefully it's all one size.
And some of these little felt rings, these go on the new battery terminals.
To help prevent corrosion and problems with starting later.
[MUSIC]
Alright, step one is get the negative terminal off your old dead battery.
This is actually how you Safe, a car battery you take off negative and interrupt the ground, as opposed to removing positive like you might think.
When you're done, secure that thing so it's not flopping around.
Step 2, take off the positive terminal now, the red one that has the big plus sign next to it.
It shouldn't be too hard to spot.
[MUSIC]
And secure that one away from the battery, as well.
Okay, stop before we go to the next step.
Do not lay metal tools around this exposed positive terminal, and any other metal around the car.
If you do so, you may be doing some freelance welding, and you won't like the results.
Step three, you've got some kind of a bracket holding your battery down.
And it needs to come off.
It probably uses the same size wrench that you use to take the terminals off.
At least if the car maker was thoughtful and gave that some consideration.
Okay.
Now you're old, dead, disgusting battery comes out.
Step 4. Clean the battery terminals.
The inside where the attached Next to your new battery to get a nice contact.
Use a rag, maybe put some WD-40 on there and work it through.
Now when you're done, put these guys in a safe place away from the battery again.
[MUSIC]
If you have a little portable vac or even a non-portable vac Get in there and get the crap out.
It's gonna be gross.
[BLANK_AUDIO]
Step five, put in a new battery, and of course make sure the battery goes in.
The polarity is the same, that means you bought the right battery, see our video on that.
That means the positive and negative are in the same place
[MUSIC]
It's in relation this way and also the side of the battery they're on.
[MUSIC]
Okay.
Step six.
Put your mounting bracket back on.
You don't want to forget this.
I've seen people do it saying it's not going anywhere.
Big ole heavy battery.
It'll be fine.
No, it's going somewhere.
[MUSIC]
It may be square looking, but believe me, it will move like a bowling ball within your car.
Now, step seven, you want to get these little pads we talked about and those go on top of your terminals, these just help prevent corrosion that can cause your car to have a hard time starting later.
You always want good transfer of current across these terminals.
Okay, step eight Attach the positive terminal first.
Just like it came off last the other way, it goes on first this way.
Step 9, you guessed it, now it's time for the negative terminal to go back on.
At this point, your car is now re-energized, just so you know.
Dome lights and things will come on, radio, don't be scared.
Okay, your final step, step 10, is to take this battery terminal protection spray and spray this all over the top of the positive and the negative.
Just spray it on each terminal to cover up all the exposed metal parts and the post, you'll want to prevent corrosion there which can cause the battery to charge poorly once you're driving and be weak when it's trying to start your engine.
A whole bunch of good stuff comes from keeping these non corroded.
And that's it.
Now the fun part, go start the car.
[SOUND]
[MUSIC]
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