You shouldn't have to be ASE certified to do every task on your car. There used to be jobs anyone could handle, even if they weren't Mr. Goodwrench, because the parts were easy to see and get to. Sure, it wasn't impossible to mess up a job like changing a thermostat, replacing the air filter, or changing out spark plugs, but they weren't hard to learn, either. Nowadays, it seems that engineers and car designers look for ways to make things difficult for us, or they're simply unaware that some customers may want to work on their own vehicles at some point. That's why we have Right-To-Repair laws.
One of the jobs that should be super simple is changing out the battery. Just pop the hood, disconnect the battery cables, loosen a couple of bolts, do the reverse with the new battery, and presto, you're done. Except that car manufacturers have found ways to complicate even this easy task. Some cars now have the battery in the trunk, while others have it hidden under the floorboards and seats, or worse, in the wheel wells. Some folks have reported not just having to remove a wheel to get to the battery, but also the fender shield.
To be fair, automakers don't do this because they're a bunch of sadists. Moving the battery to odd places leaves more space in the engine bay for things like turbochargers and emissions control systems. It also helps to balance the weight of the vehicle. Still, changing a battery shouldn't be this hard.
If you prop open your hood and can't find your battery underneath it, you might want to check your trunk. That's where Chevy put the battery in the Cobalt SS and several model years of the Malibu. BMW did that with the 5 Series for a while, as did Mercedes with the E-Class and Toyota with the Prius.
The trunk may not be the absolute worst place to put a battery, but it can certainly be inconvenient. That's because the trunk-mounted batteries are often under the floorboard of the trunk, like the spare tire. This may not be a big deal if you're one of those weirdos with a neatly arranged trunk. But what if you keep all kinds of things in your trunk? For some of us, our trunk is a repository for everything we don't want to cram into the backseat. To be able to lift out the floorboard, we might first have to take out our toolboxes, jumper cables, gym bag, first aid kit, the lawn chairs we forgot to take out when we got back from the beach, the kids' soccer gear, a box of Tupperware (how did that get in there?), and the spare tire we didn't put back in its spot because we were too lazy to take all of that stuff out of the trunk.
Putting the battery in the trunk helps to balance the weight of the car, but it also means that longer cables are needed to connect the battery to the electrical system, which could lead to a voltage drop. That results in longer, heavier cables, which ultimately just means there are more places for the cable to fail.
Another clever place some carmakers like to hide their batteries is under the floorboard in the cabin. This is where you'll find the battery in the new Chevy Traverse. If your battery is under the floor, you might have to remove the floor covering or carpeting just to get to it, depending on the model of your car.
However, some manufacturers, like Ford, Jeep, Mercedes, and Audi, have gone a step further and placed their batteries under the seats of some vehicles. If it's a front seat, you'll likely have to move it all the way forward to get to the battery. This doesn't sound like a big deal, except that the battery is placed under power seats. How are you supposed to move a power seat when your battery is dead?
The manual for the Ford Transit says just to jump-start the battery (via remote terminals under the hood) in order to move the seat. That's great, if the battery isn't so far gone that it can't be jump-started. The solution from one YouTuber was to MacGyver the battery in his riding mower up to the diodes in the power seat in his Mercedes ML, which gave the seat enough juice to be moved. Again, changing a car battery should not be this hard.
YouTube.com/Hacks and Projects
With each wave of new cars, there seems to be less space under the hood. That's one of the reasons the battery keeps getting pushed out, and how we wound up with batteries being placed inside of fenders or wheel wells. The wheel well just does not seem like the smartest place for a car battery, yet that's the spot Chrysler chose for their LH and Cloud cars. This was also done with the Dodge Journey and Dodge Avenger. The battery in the Dodge Viper GTS is actually behind the rear wheel, of all places.
Whenever a battery is in a wheel well or behind a fender, you will, at the very least, have to jack up the car and remove the wheel just to get to the battery. You may also have to take out all those little fasteners that are holding the fender liner in place. We can't imagine why the automotive engineers at Chrysler would put their batteries behind front fenders. It can't be of much help with weight distribution, since the battery is still up front, on the side. Maybe they did it to protect the battery from engine heat. Maybe they just ran out of space in the engine bay. Or maybe, just maybe, they hate us.
You might be wondering how you're supposed to jump-start a car when the battery is buried in a wheel well or hidden in some other mystery spot. Believe it or not, automotive engineers have thought of this. If you open the hood of your car and don't see a battery, look for remote terminals, often where you would expect to find the battery or next to the fuse box. You can hook your jumper cables to these terminals and jump the car that way.
Look for a cap with a plus sign (+) on it; usually, the cap is red. The negative (-) terminal should be close by. In the case of the Ford Transit, the negative terminal is actually a small grounding connection point under a removable rubber cover. Connect the cable to the positive terminal on the car with the dead battery, then the positive on the good battery. Connect the cable to an unpainted part of the frame of the disabled car (or the ground connection point on the Ford Transit), then to the negative terminal on the good battery. Start the engine in the helper car, then try to start the other car. Never jump-start another car if you only have a positive terminal. Once jumped, drive the car around for a while.
Jump starting isn't the hard part; swapping out the battery is. And by "hard," we don't mean it's hard to figure out how to change the battery or that it needs a lot of skill. Almost anyone could still replace a battery, even when it's hidden in one of the places we described. But it's still a hassle we could live without.
