How to Change a Car Battery

hey kids so sure enough I ended up having to swap out my battery so I'm sorry so I made that video and then I thought well there are some comments about how long I said a battery should last so I just wanted to make sure maybe I was a little too hopeful when I said 6 to 12 years because people in harsh with climates we're laughing at me so anyway so in fairness yeah I mean if you're in a rough climate they could only last three years twelve years is really really hopeful so I apologize for that I think you probably could expect in a normal climate 6 years but you know in a rougher climate you're probably looking at three or four years so anyway just wanted to clear that up so that it caused any confusion and if anything maybe I was just allowing you to be a little more hopeful that your battery battery lasts longer I didn't want you to though to have it in only the last six years and you're gonna I should last for 12 so anyway just wanted to clear that up all right thank you hey kids so sure enough my battery was just it had ran its course it was just dead because we didn't leave the lights on or anything it just wouldn't start and that's probably was a pretty good sign and then especially once we came out and we saw the the terminals were clean I had a feeling that it probably was just the battery so I'm gonna show you how to replace the battery that's we're gonna do today okay okay so the right way to do this would be to have the right wrenches and this is a 10 millimeter this is a 10 millimeter this is a 10 millimeter and then and this is a 10 millimeter but I don't have a 10 millimeter wrench on me so and you got to be careful with this this is a needlenose pliers okay that's what they call that when I do my tool Tuesday I'll kind of walk through the different pliers that you need but this is this is pretty handy you just want to make sure that you're not stripping the the nuts because then if you keep using something the wrong tool eventually over time you know this is gonna get rounded off and then you might have to use another tool to try to get that off so it's not really a good habit to get into but I just want to show you if you don't have the right tool sometimes you have to just find a way okay so we're gonna go ahead and just loosen these up okay okay so that's already loose hook that and then I'm gonna loosen this okay again see how you can kind of round that off if you're not careful you want to keep those edges sharp if at all possible so that's why you don't want to use the wrong tool all the time so don't just get a needle nose right so we got that pull that off okay set that off to the side now again needle nose I do happen to have a socket that'll work for for this and I'll show you I'm gonna use my drill for that but for this I don't have a deep socket in order to go over that and I don't have a ten millimeter wrench so I'm just gonna get it started this is probably pretty you know it's not gonna be that bad so now I'm gonna do this loosen that up okay pull that off set that off to the side keep track of that right make sure you know where you put it so we can loosen that up now I'm going to use my drill to show you how easy it is when you have the right tool this is a ten millimeter socket just put it right on there and I gotta make sure okay so that's all loose we just set that aside make sure we keep track of it okay so now we're gonna go ahead and pull this out okay set that off to the side and this little this little hook right here I'm gonna show you and we'll show you what that looks like it looks like that and so you're gonna need to pay attention to this when we remove this I'll show you what what that hooks into so let's go ahead and pull this out batteries are about probably 40 pounds I don't know exactly but they're fairly heavy and so thankfully they got a handle on them okay the battery that I picked up it didn't have a handle and so I said hey I need a handle can you help me out and sure enough they went and got me a handle off an old battery and we put it on it you'll see but anyway you want to make sure you have a handle cuz these are a bugger to get out of here you know if you're lifting them out plus you want to kind of keep the battery away from you you don't want to lean it up against your shirt because there's some acid and it can burn into your shirt right and ruin your shirt okay so we're just gonna pull this out of here okay so we're gonna put that new battery back in but before we do let's pay attention to this hook and what that looks like down there okay so there's a usually a pretty there's a plastic plate that your battery sits on and it looks like this okay pretty common anymore you know depend on how old your vehicle isn't it this one has a couple bumps in it right and they actually fit in a couple holes over here right there those two holes this thing you just come over here you put it down okay it's gonna fit in those in those two holes like so okay so but here's what we want to look at first okay so this little hook that's going to hold your battery downs is important that you secure your battery after its installed is it's gonna fit inside there right there's a little hole there that's that it's hooking into and that's important because before you actually put the battery in there and the batteries in your way you want to know what you're looking for right because I've made that mistake so I'm sure in my my wisdom with you trying to figure out what I was trying to hook without knowing what I was looking for okay so now I put that plate back we'll set this off to the side okay I'm gonna grab the new battery let's just set it up here for a second you can see that there's a and you see how handy that handle is if you don't have that handle this is a lot harder job right make sure you have that handle so it's got a plus sign on it right and this is my plus sign over here right my my positive side so you just want to make sure you have it in the right area okay so take this put it down inside there okay okay and then just make sure that okay and then now I think before I even attach those cables I'm gonna try to fish for that that hook down there okay I'm gonna go ahead and and I can see it and now that since I know what I'm looking for it makes it a lot easier I've already hooked it okay so now I'm gonna go ahead and put this guy on and it's just kind of temporarily okay I'm not gonna tighten anything down just yet I'm just gonna get that I've got that hook okay and it's there okay so that's beautiful now we're gonna go ahead and before we finish tighten it down we're just gonna go ahead and connect the positive okay we connect to the positive again I don't have the right tool so I'm using my needlenose but it still should be fine okay and just pay attention to those edges so you're not rounding it off okay make sure we got a good connection there put that down now we can go ahead and attach this one little spark still scares me even though I knew it was coming and so it looks like I need to loosen this up a little bit to get it to fit on this post it's like this post must have been a little bit bigger than my old one okay and then we just make sure we get it down there tight okay and then we're going to tighten it tighten it back up alright okay so that's good now we go ahead and just tighten this down and since things are still not really tightened down good we just it gives us a little wiggle room you start tighten things up too soon then it's hard to move things around okay so that's good we can tighten this one down okay and then now just need to finish tightening that down make sure it's still hooked right it is okay again the right tool would have been the right deal but sometimes you're in a remote location you've got to do what you got to do okay okay so everything's really secure I'm gonna go ahead and get in the vehicle and give it a shot okay so we're back inside the van we just swapped out the battery and we're gonna go ahead and give it a shot okay beautiful started right up so a couple things to keep in mind now that that's done is when I bought my battery they charged me a core charge of fifteen dollars if I had my old battery with me and I went to buy the new battery then they wouldn't charge me the court charge because I'm just handing over the old battery and I'm getting the new battery but when you don't have the old battery with you like I didn't because I just took it out and put in the new one they're gonna charge you a quart charge in my case it's 15 dollars I don't know if that's standard now it used to be ten dollars and he used to be five dollars but right now it was fifteen dollars for me so now I can drive back to the store with my old battery and get my fifteen dollars back so anyway I hope that was helpful to you you know some things seem a little intimidating but just by walking through the steps maybe this gives you the confidence to try it for yourself if you need it done if you don't there's nothing wrong with that but at least you know what the process looks like you know if you want a mechanic to do it then you just might have to pay to a mechanic to do it there's and there's no shame in that because mechanics are good at what they do just trying to help you do some things you know to give you confidence to be able to maybe figure it out for yourself or at least understand the process okay so I'm proud of you for trying this and you've got this