Installing A Battery
As I have gotten older, there are certain jobs that I once did routinely that I no longer do. But there are a few of them that I simply cannot stand to pay someone else to do. And one of those comes up every time one of my cars needs a new battery.
Most people think nothing of solving a problem around the house or in the driveway by “calling the guy”. Some of us, however, are more inclined to DIYing those jobs. In my own case, I have a tendency to think that most jobs can be done by a moderately intelligent guy if that guy is patient and willing to learn. And once a certain set of skills (and tools) has been assembled, the number of jobs you can do at home or on your car is quite large.
At home, for example, I have been fairly successful at trim carpentry, at painting, at plumbing, and have even added a circuit to my electrical panel. In my garage I have replaced starters, alternators, and twice have replaced broken springs in the suspension. This is not to say that I still want to do all of these jobs. I am older (and perhaps a little wiser) and am quite happy to “call the guy” should a job of these sorts present itself as necessary. But.
Yes, there is always a “but”. There are some jobs that seem so simple that my self-respect becomes involved if someone suggests “calling the guy” to me. One of these is when it is time to replace a car battery. Which happened again last week.
I have probably installed somewhere north of 25 car batteries in my life, whether in cars of my own or in cars of family members and friends. When it is suggested that “the guy” should be called, the first thing to my mind is “how hard is it to go to Costco/Wal-Mart/The Auto Parts Store and buy a battery. There is no mark-up like when a shop sells you a battery, and with a couple of rudimentary hand tools you can have the job done in 15 minutes. And that’s if you are taking your time.
Maybe I insist on doing batteries myself because none of my excuses apply. I will not have to crawl under the car. I will not get greasy. I will not need a helper. I will not need any specialty tools. And I will not have to learn how to do it. Any job that can be done without those issues – well, why wouldn’t I do it myself?
The replacement went as it always does – I took out the old one, drove it to Costco to get the exchange credit, and bought the new one. Once home, I put it in the battery tray and fastened it down. Finally, I cleaned the terminals and connected them. There – the job was done, and in not much more time than it took to write that paragraph.
There are other similarly easy jobs that I can be convinced to forego for the sake of convenience. If a car is in for service and the shop tells me it’s time for a new air filter, I can sigh and will as often as not give them the go-ahead to replace it – simple though that job may be. But if the conversation turns to a battery, the answer will be a hard no because I will do that one myself.
Don’t ask my why this particular job (and no other) is one that my pride will not let someone do for me. But here we are. If there is a car battery to be replaced, don’t even think about suggesting that I take the car somewhere to have it done.
Perhaps the day will come when I am on the verge of being unable to take care of myself. My children may take my car keys away and suggest that I move into an assisted living facility. If, however, one of them mentions that one of their cars needs a battery, you can bet that my shaky hand will grab my cane as I turn towards the garage and say “Come on, we can do this ourselves in just a few minutes.”
J. P.'s Blog 
Agreed about car batteries. Perhaps part of the reason you like doing them is the simplicity (on most cars, anyway) and the instant gratification? It’s certainly that way for me.
The DIY thing is great but can have limitations on one’s patience. Recently, the alternator went south on my old Dodge pickup. So I ordered a new one (not reman) from Rock Auto. This new one was not charging as the battery was at 11 volts while running. So I sent it back for another; same thing. I even swapped batteries with the van, running each using the other’s battery. Still 11 volts with either battery. So back it went. I still need to get an alternator, although I can now remove and install an alternator on a ’91 Dodge pickup in under ten minutes.
I say all that as there is a distinct challenge factor with battery replacement. They are extraordinarily heavy for their size. Wrangling them into such a tight crevice is also rewarding.
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Ordinarily, I hate electrical issues because I don’t have enough experience with them. I presume you have ruled out a voltage regulator issue?
Batteries are indeed heavy, but are a breeze compared with stuff that is so much less accessible.
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After terrible American cars almost bankrupting me with repairs back in the early 70’s, I decided to buy the cheapest quality Japanese car I could afford, precisely so that I could afford to maintain the car by the book at the dealership. This has been wildly successful for me, having cars that made it well into the 200,000 mile range with zero breaks of any kind! One of the things I hit on years ago, especially in the northern climes, was replacing the battery the next fall, after 4 winters. This has kept me from finding that my battery was dead, when the car won’t start, instead of never having a dead battery!
Cars have gotten so complicated, and have so many things working electronically in the background, even when the car is off; that I’ve been perfectly happy ceding battery changes to the professionals, in the past, a good local shop, and even the last time, at the dealer, where I got a fantastic job, with all the surrounding area cleaned out, and terminals painted with waterproof coatings, for not that much more than dickin’ around with a battery change myself!
I’ve told my friends, I’ll sit around your garage and help you rebuild a Jaguar XKE and drink up your scotch, but that’s what I draw the line on! If you love doing that stuff, that’s great, but I don’t, and over the years, I realized I love to do what I love to do, make money, and pay others to do what they love to do!
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I love your philosophy on helping with car repairs! I will provide that kind of help on any job any time. 🙂
I guess it’s what you are used to doing or what you like to do. I like fixing things.
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I agree about DIY stuff. A guy can figure a thing out and fix while having an excuse to buy a new tool or tools. But if the guy at the parts store can do the job for free, I say let him.
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But Herb, that would put my man-card at risk! 🙂
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Understandable, but I just let the young fellow get a punch on his card, instead.
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Have to laugh! That “man card” thing, BTW, huge in blue collar America, is one of the things I had to disabuse my pals of falling for. Watching a highly regarded (and highly paid) professional 3D computer illustrator botching a brake job while laying on the snow covered ground on a -10 degree day, so his blue collar dad wouldn’t think ill of him, is the type of thinking I needed to break them of! Especially when he could so easily pay pocket change (for him) and get a nicer job done at the sharp mechanic down the block, and keep that that guy in business!
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But at least they know how to do it, even if they only did it once. That knowledge will help protect them from incompetent/crook mechanics in the future (who are, sadly, more common than they should be).
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Oh yeah, because I CAN do it means that I MUST do it. Even the Ford Focus battery which is so buried under the firewall that I can only get two fingers on each corner and it comes out on end.
But, because I am getting wiser I put a strap around it so next time I just have to grab the strap and heave it out. Which practically guarantees that the battery will last the remaining life of the car!
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I have been fortunate to avoid cars with really odd battery placement.
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My late neighbor did all his own work on his car and hated when finally, there was something he could not tackle as it needed a proprietary tool to pry off the outer part of a headlamp to get in and simply replace the light. He couldn’t buy that particular tool at Sears where he bought the other tools and was forced to ruin his record and go to a professional. You are lucky you know so much about the workings of cars JP. Twenty-five batteries – wow to that stat! Because I don’t drive my car enough, I have used a trickle charger 24/7/365 since the Fall of 2016. I usually buy a five-year battery every two years – looks like this might be the year for a new one to keep it humming, even though I’m sure I will have my car on the road and off the trickle charger more now that I am retired.
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I hate the specialized tool thing too. The internet makes it easier to get them, but at my age I have to ask how many times I’ll do the job (or will I save enough on one use) to make it worthwhile.
I would think a battery should last over 2 years if you keep it charged.
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Yes, if the price of tools is like the price of anything else these days, you’ll think twice before making the investment. I’m thinking now that I can be out and about more in Winter (instead of just weekends), I should be okay another year – it is always on a trickle charger.
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I have a very strong DIY background, my dad was the ultimate DIY guy. After WWII, a lot of returning Vets went hard to work to gain entry into the middle class. The GI bill assisted in buying a house, and besides having a regular job, they were looking for side hustles and a way to save money by building and fixing stuff around the house and garage. If you look at old issues of Popular Science and similar other magazines from the early Fifties, they are filled with info on how to do various projects. “Save five dollars tuning your own car! The truth about tire rotation!” There were also wood working and garden “projects” some quite complicated and requiring a degree of skill. My Dad was not a Vet, but a part of the immigrant population who came to the U.S. after the War, looking for increased opportunities. They were highly motivated to make the most of every opportunity that came their way. Save a buck, and find a way to make a few extra ones.
Coming from that background, I was immersed in the world of tools and how to use them. So I fix my own cars, build and fix my own fences, paint my house, fix minor plumbing issues and appliances. Even into my retirement, that’s just who I am. One of my neighbors asked me if I ever “relax.” I told her that doing this stuff is how I relax. Doing DIY stuff is my nature, and you can’t escape your nature. Actually I’m not sure that I would want to.
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I get it. My father was unusual in being into DIY jobs even as a white collar guy. I learned how to patch drywall and to sweat a copper pipe joint by watching him. My problem is that I still work full time so I have to be careful about what I can handle given the limits on my leisure time, especially when my wife and I enjoy spending time together.
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When I was in college, a roommate said we could tune up my Ford Falcon. We bought the parts, made a mess of the engine, and the mechanic at the gas station asked, “Who did this?” I said I lent my car to my roommate and apparently he did! That was the last time I tried to save money on a DIY car repair!
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Haha – I get it. A friend and I rebuilt a carburetor on his car, but we could never get it to run right afterwards. I like to think that with more experience and maturity I could do better today, but I have never had the slightest desire to try that one again. As Dirty Harry said, a man’s got to know his limitations.
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Heres a timely story. I have a buddy with a hybrid that just had his battery go out, the main twelve volt battery, not the hybrid battery, and since his better half also had a hybrid, they decided that the jump on a hybrid to hybrid was too dangerous and fraught with peril to the electronics, so he bought one of those car starting battery packages you just clip on your battery and go, and then recharge the package later at home to use again. I had to tell him the same thing happened to my brother, and he wondered why he couldn’t utilize the big battery to start his car, so he did a deep dive on the car manual, and found there was a switch he could throw or a button he could punch on the screen, that allowed him to use the big battery to start the car if the little battery was dead! Go figger!
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Hybrids are a whole new frontier! Hybrid or full-on electric would probably make a lot of sense for me as a commuter special, but I am unwilling to buy new one for commutes to work and am leery of older ones.
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The battery on the second-generation Ford Escape is buried in the engine bay – to the point that it takes at least half a day for a professional mechanic to do it. Then there is the need to reset all sorts of codes on all newer vehicles when the battery is replaced. That discourages the do-it-yourselfer.
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Yes, I have been fortunate to avoid cars with really nasty ways of hiding the battery. I suppose this is one more skill that technology will eventually render obsolete.
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For whatever reason, Ford vehicles are more likely to possess these quirks than their GM or Toyota counterparts. I’ve noticed that in rural Pennsylvania, lots of do-it-yourselfers own a GM car or light truck. (They do avoid the Northstar Cadillacs.) The vehicles are fairly simple to repair, and most junkyards have enough old GM vehicles that finding spare parts is easy.
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I was somewhat relieved when I realized this account was going nowhere negative, but rather positive (get it?) I thought you were about to describe a hiccup in what appears to be a straightforward task. That’s my discomfort with electricity at play. Even with the circuit breaker flipped I get a little nervous with the wiring. Actually, my first thought on reading this post was about spark plugs. I’m sure you’ll tell me changing out a spark plug (on a lawn mower, in my case) is an easy task with the right wrench (and maybe a YouTube video). I change the oil and filter without hesitation. The spark plug? Yep, I’ve got to get over that irrational fear of the “spark”.
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Haha, yes there is a respect that electricity demands. I once held a spark plug wire when someone pulled the rope on an old mower engine. Fortunately in was only electrifying rather than electrocuting. My highest level of respect is saved for 110 volt household current!
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