How To: Install a Battery in Your Vehicle

Installing a new battery in your vehicle is an easy form of maintenance that will only take a few minutes of your time and a few tools. Whether you're installing a new battery in your car, truck or SUV, watch as we show you how simple it is to install a new battery in your vehicle.

0:00 Welcome Back
0:14 Locate Your Battery
0:28 Tools Needed
1:01 Detach Cables and Hold-Down
1:40 Remove the Old Battery
1:45 Install the New Battery
1:51 Reattach Battery Cables
2:15 Test Your Battery

#OReillyPowered #CarRepair
#CarMaintenance #TeamOReilly

Transcript:
A couple things before we get started: there was a time when you could lift the hood of just about any vehicle and the battery would be sitting right there. These days, you could find your battery in the trunk or even behind a wheel well, so… as usual, we recommend you consult your service manual before you get into this. And if you find it’s going to be more complicated than you thought, we’d be happy to recommend a professional technician in your area.

In most cases, the only tools you’ll need are a wrench to loosen the battery bolts & nuts and a ratchet & socket to take out the battery hold-down. When you get the battery re-installed, chances are, your radio presets and other operator preferences will be cleared out. In some vehicles, you may have to re-enter a security code to get the stereo working again.

Also, some vehicles recommend the use of a memory saver to keep the vehicle from going into ‘adaptive learning’ mode after you’ve installed the new battery. Always consult your owner’s service manual for necessary security codes and the correct battery installation procedure for your vehicle.

All right—for our purposes today, I’m going to be changing out the battery on this 2013 Toyota Tacoma.

[Hood open]
So you’ll see here that we’ve got three things we’ll need to detach to get this battery out. This is the hold-down, which helps keep the battery in place. Then we’ve got cables attached to each of the two battery terminals. We’ll start by loosening this hold-down… and slipping out the curved end of the bolt… And we’ll just swing that back out of the way.

Now when you go to disconnect the cables from the battery terminals, you’ll want to disconnect the negative cable first—it’s the one connected to the negative terminal, which is marked with a “minus sign”. Just loosen this enough to slip the connector off… and move it to the side, out of your way. Make sure it’s not resting on bare metal. Same thing with the positive cable—loosen this connector enough that you can slip it off… and move that to the side. And at this point, you should be ready to lift this battery out… very carefully—just trying to keep it upright.

Maybe you’ve got your new battery already, or maybe you run over to your O’Reilly Auto Parts store to leave this core and pick up a replacement. Either way…

Once you’ve got your new battery, you’re just going to ease it back into the tray… And we’re going to reattach the cables in reverse order—the positive will go on first… Be sure to slip that as far down on the post as you can before you tighten it… Then the negative…

And we’ll just reposition this hold-down… slip the curved end of this bolt into the hole… and tighten that down.

[oreillyautoparts]

0:00 Welcome Back
0:14 Locate Your Battery
0:28 Tools Needed
1:01 Detach Cables and Hold-Down
1:40 Remove the Old Battery
1:45 Install the New Battery
1:51 Reattach Battery Cables
2:15 Test Your Battery

[karensimons]

Great video, Thank You so much! This 67 year old grandma just changed her first truck battery ever! I am so proud of myself, a little greasy and dirty but I felt great when that motor started right up!

[goatus.]

They rate this as a 4/5 difficulty rating. If I can do it it's closer to a one or a two star difficulty rating. Thanks for the video.

[TheMheavy]

Thanks this was helpful. Also I grew a mustache watching all this manly stuff.

[heartSLB]

Thank you for this video. I just installed my brand new battery and the car started without a problem 👌👌

[kbslczs]

Thank you. I can’t believe my dad let me leave the house without teaching me any car maintenance stuff but hey at least I have YouTube. I’ve always paid somebody to do it for me but I want to do my own car maintenance stuff this year and see how much I save. Thanks!

[JENOVAHVH]

I work at Autozone and this video was more informative than the autozone one.

[ibfrobzilla]

Awesome video. It's real easy. Everyone driving should be able to do basic stuff like this

[VANESSASVANLIFEJOURNEY]

*thanks this answered my questions - first to take off and + first to put back on*

[popedtf]

Thank you so much, I know next to nothing about cars and been watching you and managed to fix my car and get it roady

[SleepEatWorkRepeat]

Worked out great. Thanks for the video O’Reilly

[naturalselectionsports]

Awesome video. Im buying a new battery this week and instead of wasting a service call I shall do it myself :D

[unit]

Thanks for this video, just installed my battery. Back on the road!

[tanishaslater]

Thanks! Just changed my own battery. Only had a huge wrench so it took me bit longer BUT I got it done. Never want to do it again though! At least not on a hot darn day like today in a pandemic with a mask on!

[IncognitosRandom]

Thanks just replaced my battery and this was a big help.

[Grungedude]

Thanks for the guide, just changed my first car battery and will continue doing myself

[tompatchak]

February 2024, and I just did this. I’m not a mechanical guy and I was worried I was gonna get shocked but it seemed to work quite well. Thank you for the video.

[kentseaman]

DIY train wreck here, actually completed per your instruction-TY!

[alexharrison-actorauthor]

Thanks a lot helped me so much today with changing my battery

[JillWilliams]

I didnt know it was that simple thanks!! I see people buying batteries all the time but i never knew how!