Replacing Car Battery Yourself

[Hammer2001]

Went out to start the car tonight and the battery has died.
Car is a 13 plate Alhambra so just over 3 and a half years old. I've had the car 5 months, but I'm assuming the battery is the original, so I guess it may be of the age where it could fail.

Anyone know if it's something I can do myself, or does it need recoding to the vehicle.

Anything I should look out for, radio codes etc? I don't have any radio code in the manual.

Any advice much appreciated.

[cheekeemonkey]

I did this on my car last year.

easy to do and only issue I had was that my mileagecounter and clock reset - not really a problem !! Everything else worked.

PS. I got the best price from RAC. Ordered in the morning and by 10am it had been delivered!!

[Hammer2001]

Excellent!
I need to check the exact spec of battery fitted in the car but I assume I'll need an AGM type battery as the vehicle has stop start.
RAC are quoting £249.95, fitted Ouch!

Halfords sell the AGM battery for £152.
Kwik Fit £155

[cheekeemonkey]

Yes, if it's got auto stop-start you need the upgraded/more powerful battery.

That's a big difference. Halford or Kwikfit it is then !!

[Hammer2001]

My main concern was the new battery needs registering with the car as if common on some modern cars nowadays.
The Elsawin documentation I've seen doesn't mention it does, so hopefully that is the case.
All it says to do is to reset the windows and set clock, and drive at a certain speed for the ECU to reprogram, so hopefully it will be a simple change.

Just sourced a Bosch AGM battery of the same size and spec for £125, so that looks favourite at the moment.

[zollaf]

at 3 1/2 years old a battery should not need replacing. i would obtain a charger and get it properly charged first. something like a ctek that does agm batteries. do you do mainly short journeys ?? i.e. sub 10 miles.

[Hammer2001]

Well, I do a mix of journeys really, on average a few sub 5 miles ones but also a weekly 20 mile each way run, in addition to some longer motorway runs.
The car is mainly only used at weekends though, so sits idle for most of the week.
I do know that before I bought the vehicle there was a 3 month period from being handed back to the leasing company, to being bought at auction by the dealer, where the car was hardly used. So maybe that with my own driving habits, may contribute to a premature end. Although I've never had an issue with my previous cars.

Anyway after much searching online and finding various different listings as to what the battery should be, none of which match exactly what is in the car, I've decided to make use of my breakdown cover and have them come out and check the battery properly, so they can advise what is the best thing to do.

Incidentally, The fitted battery is an EFB battery, not an AGM, so I wasn't sure I could just replace it with a different type.