carcrazyandbroke

Grrrr.....$tupid Design Engineers! I beleive my 11 year grandson could do a better job of design.

Oil filters, batteries, and other servicable items should be easily accessible. And those little 3/16 hold down rods could stand to be 1/8" longer if it's not asking too much.

Roush

Make sure you lift up the carpet on the front edge of the battery compartment, it makes life so much easier to change it out.

ByByBMW

z10

Ok, thought I would chime in. This is my second battery change in my 06. The first time was a royal pain, and I had the skinned knuckles to prove it. But I did do one smart thing the first time. I took the time to put some tape around the base of each tie down rod so they wouldn't drop loose. Yea.

This time around, I picked up a $2.58 battery strap from my local autoparts store. This is the kind that clamps down to each battery post. Worked like a charm. Pulled it up and out, reversed with the new battery, tie down rods stayed in their upright position. Took all of 10 minutes. No skinned knuckles and didn't have to mess with the carpet.

The battery strap now stays in the car.

MBR44

I made a duct tape handle and stuck it to the battery sides, lifted right out.

Z11409

Must be a 100 threads on this subject

ANGRY Z

Optima Red Top R34-980 batteries work great and have a built in handle...

u1arunit

101 threads now. lol

sengli

So about how long would you expect the stock battery to live....3 or 4 years? I keep mine when not in use a battery tender.

Landru

Aside from the duct tape/vice grip solution a "battery strap" is the ticket to solving this issue with minimal BS.

Of course hindsight's 20/20 having first watched a sales guy from the dealer install a new cell in my 1 day old Z06 -- resulting in the vaunted & proverbial skinned bloody knuckles.

ANGRY Z

ANGRY Z

ANGRY Z

Thats what I did. It is a R34-980 Optima RedTop from Advance Auto. All I had to do was chop the factory hold down strap in half, rivet in an extension and thats it. I did however add in a quick disconnect ****.

FU

My car has a build date of 10/05 and the battery is still going strong.