Changed The Battery In My Honda Civic : clipclip

Changed The Battery In My Honda Civic

The battery in my car has needing changing for awhile. It seems that it was not holding a charge very well anymore and sometimes overnight it would be "cross your fingers" time when you turned the key the next day that there was enough juice to get the thing going.

The car is a 2000 Honda Civic and the battery was probably about 5 years old, so I figured I'd just replace it rather than mess around. Before I replaced it I had the horrid memories of my VW Jetta and what happened when I had disconnected the battery on there one time. It seems that the companies are still using those "anti-theft" radios that require a code if they lose power.

Thinking ahead I looked through the glove compartment and couldn't find my code. I went online and looked around and found thousands of complaints about this very problem. It seems some dealers charge you upwards of $100 bucks just to look up your lost code. I found this site and some of the people commenting said that they sometimes hide the code somewhere on the car. The most common places is a little white label with the serial number of the radio that starts with an "M" and a bunch of numbers after it and another 5 digit number. This 5 digit number is the super secret code.

The places this is most commonly found is on the left side of the glove compartment, in the trunk somewhere along the gasket or underneath where the speakers are, under the fuse-box panel in the engine compartment, under the ashtray and sometimes under the center consoles lid. Well, I'm not a very lucky guy because it couldn't be found in any of those places. So being the determined guy that I am I decided to do the dangerous and risky maneuver of changing the battery with the car running.

I nervously popped the hood, put the new battery nearby, go the wrenches out and found the size ahead of time. Then I started it and went to work. I took the negative off without a problem, then the positive. So far so good, the car was still running. I then had to take off the battery mounting bracket from atop the battery and kinda freaked when the long bolts fell to the side after I unscrewed them. The hardest part was keeping the damn detached battery wires from coming back down onto the terminals because they were bent into shape after so many years. I bent them away one more time and lifted the battery out. I managed to do it without the battery wires coming into contact with the battery again. I set it down on the ground.

I stood the mounting bracket bolts back up so that when I put the new battery in they would be easy to get to. I bent the battery cables back again and picked the new one up and slid it into place being careful. I get all worried about stuff like this. I'm a stickler for doing things "the correct way" and really get frustrated sometimes. It fit into place and I put the back bolt through the bracket and put the screw on a little whispering to myself "this is a one shot deal, if you're an idiot and drop the screw you'll have a helluva time finding it in the engine or underneath the car". I was extremely careful. I got the bracket on the back and then on the front mumbling the whole time.

After fiddling with the bracket and tightening it down to make it flat and even on the battery, I then put the positive on by holding the wire and slipping the connector onto the post. I tightened it down gingerly at first then firmly. Now the test, I held the negative by the wire and put it on the post and heard the welcome sound of a drain on the motor ensuring me that something was happening. I tightened it down and then being the anal-retentive person that I am returned the little rubbery piece over the positive terminal (someone who had jumped my wife's car had left it off previously which annoyed me greatly).

I slapped the old battery on some paper towel in the backseat on the floor and decided to drive around for about 5 minutes. Upon returning I left the car running while I sat out and had a cigarette. Then I nervously shut the car off and turned it on again. It started up like a jackrabbit on Viagra and I was thrilled.

I turned the radio on. No CODE display on the radio!!! Whoohoo! The anti-theft radio is the biggest nuisance known to man. In theory it seems like it would be great, but like software piracy protection it almost always is more of a consumer annoyance than an actual theft prevention system.

Hopefully everything will continue to work and I'll be done with having to deal with the battery for a long time.

Now about that slow leak I have in the driver side tire. I bought some Fix-A-Flat, but after reading around the web for awhile have decided not to use it as it's messy and probably dangerous in the end. I guess I'll just stick it in the trunk for now.

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Comments

Dude, I don't know how you could do that. A few weeks ago I changed my headlight bulb and was quite (happily) suprised when the whole assembly didn't explode when I started my car.

Posted by: Malnurtured Snay at January 5, 2005 10:08 AM

I love it . . A college education and nary a clue about things mechanical . . . . there is a "Chilton Manual" for each and every vehicle out there . . It's "the Instructions, Stupid" and can be bought for about $20 at any Auto Zone or Checker. If you can't do simple maintenance on your automobile . . You shouldn't be driving it . . .

The funny thing is . . most of the really good troubleshooters in the Automobile Repair Business have a High School diploma and some tech school . . no BA's or BS's here . . but they do understand "Lefty Loosey, Righty tighty" . .

Just my 2 cents worth as a teacher at a Community College . . .

Posted by: large at January 5, 2005 11:32 AM

I am a firm believer in shelling out the big bucks to have some middle-aged, fat mechanic with his butt-crack visible above his belt make any and all repairs on my car (and probably a few that either weren't necessary or he caused them) because believe me, I can screw up a cup of coffee. BUT...I've never been in an accident that was my fault, so I guess that makes me a good driver, sort of.

Posted by: Catherine at January 6, 2005 01:48 PM

For all you folks out there that have disconnected power to you Heidelberg VI "anti-theft" radio in your Volkswagen, heres how you restore it. First you have to remove the radio from the dash by prying off the faceplate very carefully with a slotted screwdriver. Next remove the fasteners and slide out the radio. The 4 digit security code should be written on the back. Slide the radio back in. Now here are the instructions for powering it up:
-switch the radio on. "SAFe" should appear on the display
- push AM/FM and SCAN buttons. hold them until the display changes to "1000" then release.
- enter the code using the first four station programming buttons. the code will appear on the display.
- again, push the AM/FM and SCAN buttons. hold them until the the display changes to safe mode again.

after two incorrect tries the radio will lock up for an hour. leave it switched on for an hour and try again later. the radio shouldn't lock up permanently.

posted february 25 /05 by trevor dinwoodie of kelowna bc